"Wake up, dammit."
Syhrberk Horskhyr looked at the sleeping figure on the bed and then back to the letter in his hands. He had perhaps one more day and some fleeting bells before he'd be unable to ignore the command on the slip of paper, barely more than scrap. He'd picked up the script easily enough, tidbits of nonsense. Horskhyr was used to speaking in nonsense. It was part of what made him such a proper fit for the job.
He hadn't been blind to the situation going down on the mainlands - half blind perhaps, but no longer. One pale, large hand reached up to the lines on his face and he smiled thinking back to the warnings he'd been given. That was another part of what made him such a natural fit for the job. Scars told a story, and the destitute of Limsa Lominsa could barely afford to eat let alone get treated by anyone with more than an inkling of the aether in them. Anyone can say they'd been mauled by fierce beasts. It took an altogether different sort of sod to let them maul him so the story would check out.
The scars that raked across his eye would heal. With enough time, enough dosage, enough concentrated power healing magick could turn back nearly any wound or mark. That was the third part of what made him right for the job. Folks see a giant person, they assume he's always a giant person. Someone who's missing most of their hand, or has a mangled or missing foot, or half their face covered because of exposure to wild viper venom is identified by the missing parts. Horskhyr learned that long ago. People won't remember your face if they can just remember what's missing off of it instead.
After more than a day, the highlander stirred. Slowly at first, the small motions of a man coming from a dream, then the memories washed over him and he bolted up to a sitting position with a start.
"Don't try to stand." Syhrberk spoke softly, he knew the ball was in his court.
**
Warren roused from the emptiness. It wasn't the coming-to of sleep, nor was it the gradual waking that came from passing from exhaustion. All at once his mind dumped itself back into his skull - Valeria, the gaunt man, then nothing. He checked at first for shackles on his wrists and feet, reflexively, then looked around the room with gummy eyes. He was surprised to see the doorman looking back at him.
"What... I-" Talking was difficult. His tongue felt swollen, and his consciousness brought a roaring headache back from the depths with it.
"I was going to ask you the same thing." The roegadyn stood from his position, seemingly unarmed save for a slip of paper nearly balled in one massive fist. "I hear gunshots, which I expected. I go to look, I see your stupid ass in a heap. I see a dead runner. I see no one else. You know why that might be?"
Warren concentrated hard to listen and understand through the buzz in his head. Gunshots? Who had a gun?
"Look, dialogue works best when we exchange ideas." The roe motioned back and forth between himself and the highlander, indicating the give and take nature of basic conversation.
"Yeah, I just... What?"
With a sigh the roe folded his arms and rolled his head. "Ears, ya donkey walker! Won't book ya none to jes' orb the angel's wake."
Warren blinked hard. His thoughts still made sense, but the roegadyn wasn't spinning any wheels.
"How the hells did you manage to infiltrate this damned gang if you can't even talk?"
"Look, I don't know what... I got... knocked out by something. Chemical? It was on the gloves..."
"Oy, now you can speak." The roe threw his hands up in the air and looked exasperated. "We don't have a lot of time, boyo. How about you start with the most recent thing you can remember?"
**
"You're telling me she brought Ul'dah law enforcement in on this? What a braven woman."
Warren shook his head. "Not law enforcement. Not even anything official. I'm independent, and have been for a year."
Syrhberk nodded his head. "Aye. Takes brass ones to waltz in claiming to be a dead man, though."
"Look, it was the only thing I could come up with. It made sense, I couldn't have known I was being played as well."
The pair had decided to match wits on the details of their own investigations. Warren seemed remiss to trust the stranger initially, but logic entailed when Syhrberk pointed out he had nothing to lose. If he wanted Warren dead, he would have been twelve bells previous. For his part, Syhrberk had been working for the illustrious Mister Johnes for the better part of a year. Small time stuff initially, but he got to meet the folks who did the real operating. No one knew anything the others were up to, but the friendly slang-talking doorman was easy to open up to. The bells and days and months cramming Cant into his head had paid off, and most folks figured even if he wanted to tell someone they'd never be able to understand him.
He'd met the cooks and alchemists - the former being the needy, addicted sorts who didn't mind sharing information if they thought it would protect them, and the latter being the types that knew they were smarter than everyone else around them and spoke in real simple, patronizing terms. The runners were the most coy, but proud. He remembered the girl with the mouth that shot off when challenged, he remember how it was sometimes easy to ring information out of the daft ones. They're the sorts who sometimes didn't come back again. Over the course of his time, Syhrberk had amassed enough information to realize the network was working on something big, but it wasn't local. Other, less connected and less profitable drug lords had fought for power and influence, where Johnes just drove his prices down and his profits up. He couldn't see the bigger picture.
Warren's insight had supplied the rest of what he was missing. An unrelated investigation in another city, miles and miles away where relations were tenuous at best. It was only recently that a formal alliance had even been considered, but it wasn't Limsa's priority if a couple of seemingly-well-to-do traders got knocked off by their own political rivals. At the heart of the investigation was an elezen woman with no background, nothing important - She'd been seen with the deceased and that was all. She knew she'd be implicated and went for help.
Valeria - Syhrberk knew her as Etoile - had been working on Johnes' rivals for him. The operation was split with him working on manufacturing and her taking care of the distribution. But now both of them were gone, seemingly vanished. In their stead was what drew Warren into things in the first place - A corpse with nothing connecting him to anything else.
"Everyone's gone to ground. I haven't heard from any runners, I haven't heard from anyone else claiming responsibility, anyone moving in or anyone having heard anything. What I have heard has been troubling, though."
Warren looked on, trying to put pieces together.
"Bodies. The weak, the sick, the addicted and the ill. All users, probably clients. I heard from a contact down the line that there looked to be some sort of... civil war going on with the lowest levels. What do you think, knight? Coincidences?"
"Not a chance. Hear me out here. The two deaths in Ul'dah were the same thing. The second one was the odd one. Seemingly overdosed, but covered up by local law. At least, they didn't think it was anything strange. The first one was also an overdose, but..." Figgenbottom's death came in the middle of the night, theorized suicide after finding the calling card for someone else in lieu of his beautiful elezen, and-
"The card. The damned drug's a contact poison! She killed him with the card!"
"Look, knight. I don't know what your stake in all of this is-"
"I don't either anymore."
"-but," the roe continued, not stopping for the interruption, "You're right about it being a contact drug. Rub it on the skin, feels the effects and drift off to wherever your brain takes you. Most of the time it's harmless, you know. I mean, besides the addiction, the withdrawal and the chance of it just burning you out from the inside. But now I find everyone around here associated with it is turning up as bloatfly bedding and everyone you who touched it or knew about it is deader than driftwood. So why is it that you seemed to take it, and all you did was wind up here?"
Warren glanced away, his eyes searching the walls of the sparsely occupied room for answers that weren't written there. Why indeed?
Syhrberk Horskhyr looked at the sleeping figure on the bed and then back to the letter in his hands. He had perhaps one more day and some fleeting bells before he'd be unable to ignore the command on the slip of paper, barely more than scrap. He'd picked up the script easily enough, tidbits of nonsense. Horskhyr was used to speaking in nonsense. It was part of what made him such a proper fit for the job.
He hadn't been blind to the situation going down on the mainlands - half blind perhaps, but no longer. One pale, large hand reached up to the lines on his face and he smiled thinking back to the warnings he'd been given. That was another part of what made him such a natural fit for the job. Scars told a story, and the destitute of Limsa Lominsa could barely afford to eat let alone get treated by anyone with more than an inkling of the aether in them. Anyone can say they'd been mauled by fierce beasts. It took an altogether different sort of sod to let them maul him so the story would check out.
The scars that raked across his eye would heal. With enough time, enough dosage, enough concentrated power healing magick could turn back nearly any wound or mark. That was the third part of what made him right for the job. Folks see a giant person, they assume he's always a giant person. Someone who's missing most of their hand, or has a mangled or missing foot, or half their face covered because of exposure to wild viper venom is identified by the missing parts. Horskhyr learned that long ago. People won't remember your face if they can just remember what's missing off of it instead.
After more than a day, the highlander stirred. Slowly at first, the small motions of a man coming from a dream, then the memories washed over him and he bolted up to a sitting position with a start.
"Don't try to stand." Syhrberk spoke softly, he knew the ball was in his court.
**
Warren roused from the emptiness. It wasn't the coming-to of sleep, nor was it the gradual waking that came from passing from exhaustion. All at once his mind dumped itself back into his skull - Valeria, the gaunt man, then nothing. He checked at first for shackles on his wrists and feet, reflexively, then looked around the room with gummy eyes. He was surprised to see the doorman looking back at him.
"What... I-" Talking was difficult. His tongue felt swollen, and his consciousness brought a roaring headache back from the depths with it.
"I was going to ask you the same thing." The roegadyn stood from his position, seemingly unarmed save for a slip of paper nearly balled in one massive fist. "I hear gunshots, which I expected. I go to look, I see your stupid ass in a heap. I see a dead runner. I see no one else. You know why that might be?"
Warren concentrated hard to listen and understand through the buzz in his head. Gunshots? Who had a gun?
"Look, dialogue works best when we exchange ideas." The roe motioned back and forth between himself and the highlander, indicating the give and take nature of basic conversation.
"Yeah, I just... What?"
With a sigh the roe folded his arms and rolled his head. "Ears, ya donkey walker! Won't book ya none to jes' orb the angel's wake."
Warren blinked hard. His thoughts still made sense, but the roegadyn wasn't spinning any wheels.
"How the hells did you manage to infiltrate this damned gang if you can't even talk?"
"Look, I don't know what... I got... knocked out by something. Chemical? It was on the gloves..."
"Oy, now you can speak." The roe threw his hands up in the air and looked exasperated. "We don't have a lot of time, boyo. How about you start with the most recent thing you can remember?"
**
"You're telling me she brought Ul'dah law enforcement in on this? What a braven woman."
Warren shook his head. "Not law enforcement. Not even anything official. I'm independent, and have been for a year."
Syrhberk nodded his head. "Aye. Takes brass ones to waltz in claiming to be a dead man, though."
"Look, it was the only thing I could come up with. It made sense, I couldn't have known I was being played as well."
The pair had decided to match wits on the details of their own investigations. Warren seemed remiss to trust the stranger initially, but logic entailed when Syhrberk pointed out he had nothing to lose. If he wanted Warren dead, he would have been twelve bells previous. For his part, Syhrberk had been working for the illustrious Mister Johnes for the better part of a year. Small time stuff initially, but he got to meet the folks who did the real operating. No one knew anything the others were up to, but the friendly slang-talking doorman was easy to open up to. The bells and days and months cramming Cant into his head had paid off, and most folks figured even if he wanted to tell someone they'd never be able to understand him.
He'd met the cooks and alchemists - the former being the needy, addicted sorts who didn't mind sharing information if they thought it would protect them, and the latter being the types that knew they were smarter than everyone else around them and spoke in real simple, patronizing terms. The runners were the most coy, but proud. He remembered the girl with the mouth that shot off when challenged, he remember how it was sometimes easy to ring information out of the daft ones. They're the sorts who sometimes didn't come back again. Over the course of his time, Syhrberk had amassed enough information to realize the network was working on something big, but it wasn't local. Other, less connected and less profitable drug lords had fought for power and influence, where Johnes just drove his prices down and his profits up. He couldn't see the bigger picture.
Warren's insight had supplied the rest of what he was missing. An unrelated investigation in another city, miles and miles away where relations were tenuous at best. It was only recently that a formal alliance had even been considered, but it wasn't Limsa's priority if a couple of seemingly-well-to-do traders got knocked off by their own political rivals. At the heart of the investigation was an elezen woman with no background, nothing important - She'd been seen with the deceased and that was all. She knew she'd be implicated and went for help.
Valeria - Syhrberk knew her as Etoile - had been working on Johnes' rivals for him. The operation was split with him working on manufacturing and her taking care of the distribution. But now both of them were gone, seemingly vanished. In their stead was what drew Warren into things in the first place - A corpse with nothing connecting him to anything else.
"Everyone's gone to ground. I haven't heard from any runners, I haven't heard from anyone else claiming responsibility, anyone moving in or anyone having heard anything. What I have heard has been troubling, though."
Warren looked on, trying to put pieces together.
"Bodies. The weak, the sick, the addicted and the ill. All users, probably clients. I heard from a contact down the line that there looked to be some sort of... civil war going on with the lowest levels. What do you think, knight? Coincidences?"
"Not a chance. Hear me out here. The two deaths in Ul'dah were the same thing. The second one was the odd one. Seemingly overdosed, but covered up by local law. At least, they didn't think it was anything strange. The first one was also an overdose, but..." Figgenbottom's death came in the middle of the night, theorized suicide after finding the calling card for someone else in lieu of his beautiful elezen, and-
"The card. The damned drug's a contact poison! She killed him with the card!"
"Look, knight. I don't know what your stake in all of this is-"
"I don't either anymore."
"-but," the roe continued, not stopping for the interruption, "You're right about it being a contact drug. Rub it on the skin, feels the effects and drift off to wherever your brain takes you. Most of the time it's harmless, you know. I mean, besides the addiction, the withdrawal and the chance of it just burning you out from the inside. But now I find everyone around here associated with it is turning up as bloatfly bedding and everyone you who touched it or knew about it is deader than driftwood. So why is it that you seemed to take it, and all you did was wind up here?"
Warren glanced away, his eyes searching the walls of the sparsely occupied room for answers that weren't written there. Why indeed?
![[Image: yEROfKO.png]](http://i.imgur.com/yEROfKO.png)
