Fable - Ask Portent of Predation

[Zinnia]

Spoiler

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Spoiler

Mood music if you'd like:

Vel Luin. A terribly miserable place by the standards of most. While not nearly as miserably rainy and bleak as somewhere like Alliria, Vel Luin was still a coastal city, and an Anirian one at that. The weather was gray and wet on most days, and the architecture of much of the city was brutal and depressing. The stonework, anyways, of which there was much, given the city's status as a coastal bastion.

Of course, the massive slabs of dark gray stone did not cover the entirety of the city; indeed, not all of Vel Luin even had fully cobbled roads. Rickety wood and brick buildings marked the slums of Vel Luin, most covered in salt and moss or some kind of algae, the inevitable fate of any poorly maintained seaside construction. Streets were oft muddy, people oft as damp as their environment, and the city watch stretched too thin for true order to be instilled throughout all regions of the place.

It is this city, this dank and somber place, that drew Zinnia St. Kolbe, Dreadlord of Vel Anir. Not to sightsee, no, and not for business as such, but to do what history has shown she does best. An investigation.

The young woman, clad in a dark, cloth hood and mostly leather armor, and lugging a war hammer on her back, trudged down a byway, careful not to slip on the worn cobble beneath her boots. She'd arrived in town later in the afternoon, and at this time of year the sun was already beginning to set. News had reached her ears from afar: a string of horrific murders had gone on for months within the walls of Vel Luin, and as of yet no culprit had been brought to justice. Her duty, she had decided, was to bring an end to that limbo.

An inn laid before Zinnia, the Copper Cod. It was as good a place as any. Despite Zinnia being able to afford a nicer place to stay on her military salary, or even having access to the Dreadlord barracks here in Vel Luin, she had decided that staying in the side of town where many of the murders had occurred was conducive to catching whomever was responsible.

Besides...perhaps in this musty little inn she'd find allies in her endeavors. After all, it's not like she hadn't sent word ahead to the local Anirian Guard that she was coming.

 

[Mortivore Urn]

The old fisherman sat in a humble three-legged chair, in the corner of the Copper Cod, near a window weeping rainwater. His tall frame and long cloak all but smothered the modest chair, hood still pulled over teeming grey strands. A veined hand gripped a sizeable mug of dark ale, foam sprinkling its top, as might be expected of a man of the sea.

However, instead of sporting the typical equipment of an angler, entirely different equipment rested on his lone table, curious iron instruments looking more fit for a torturer or curator than one of his profession. Here a set of iron armiliary spheres, rather than any glinting baits or lures. There a long chain of a silverite metal tied to a flail-like shaft and grip, instead of any fishing rod or reel.

Instinctively, many patrons of the Copper Cod knew better than to approach him. And while they might not have boasted conscious awareness of his true calling, perhaps some deeper intuition told them that this man fished for a bounty of an entirely different nature. His nets invisible, his piscary this very establishment, which brought together a ripe tumble of minds, inebriated and defenceless, easily lured by the right prize. Schools of patrons swum drunkily among dank tables and greasy counters like marine animals finding themselves safe and cocksure in a coral reef of debauchery.

Never did they know that a shark swum amongst them, staring at each one in turn from the corner; dark, dead eyes considering consumption.

Those eyes shifted slowly below the hood, with the drifting of an apex predator that had all the time in the world, to a new arrival. A woman of deceptively average features, with but a golden sheen to her eye to betray her singularity in a sea of mediocrity.

He recognised the straight back and the nearly marching poise of someone martially trained. The fisherman leaned forward in his seat, the chair groaning below his weight. He took a deep swig from his mug, flinty gaze never leaving her, tracing her stride like a pair of unerring compass needles. Watching. Waiting. Observing.

Zinnia

 

[Reven]

One of the tables in the common room of the Copper Cod hosted a card game between two men. Both had recently quit the docks and came to the inn for a spot of relaxation.

"Well don't stay too long," said Lars, the Vel Luin local.

Reven looked up from his fan of cards to him. "Why's that?"

"There's been murders."

"Murders."

"Yeah."

"Big city like this—ain't there always murders?"

"Not like this there hasn't been."

"Well what about em. A dead man's a dead man, I'd say."

Lars went on to elaborate on some of the finer embellishments added to the story buzzing among the locals. He even knew some dockhands who were putting bets on the cause. Reven's brow twitched like a man pulling on the reins of a wayward horse. He'd better not join in on that—even this card game might pull a bit too many coins from his pocket.

"Now that's a story," Reven said as Lars concluded on the latest speculation: fishmen.

"Yeah. I damn well hate them all: elves, orcs, fishmen. Can't trust anything that isn't human. I got a son in the Guard and I said to him, said: 'Son, every knife ear you cut off, keep—I know a guy who pays good money for them, whole strings of them.' Damn shame we're fighting the Cortosi."

They played their hands. Reven swore under his breath and Lars smiled, raking in the little pile of coins wagered toward his edge of the table and scooping them into his waiting pouch.

"That'll do for me, brother," said Reven, stretching.

"Alright. If you ever come back to Vel Luin, seek me out anytime; I'd love to clean your pockets again."

"Fuck you," Reven said with a big mirthful smile.

"Stay safe."

"You're the one who has to live here."

"Eh, I've got some luck yet."

They shook hands and Lars rose and sauntered out from the inn, donning and tipping his hat toward the innkeep who gave him a small nod of acknowledgement. The door swung closed. And Reven, sitting at the table now by himself, wondered at what his friend had said: his tales were fanciful, but how much of it was true? That was the real question.

Zinnia Mortivore Urn

 

[Livia Quinnick]

This was not a side of the coastal side city she had ever thought herself to travel to, but Livia Quinnick had one last thread to follow. It was all that remained before her magic waned to nothing, a poison that set itself deep within her very being.

Livia had been careful, but also trusted she was safe anywhere in Anirian lands.

The last thing she felt was a tug towards the forgotten bowels of Vel Luin, where the stench of damp and salt could never be washed away or cleansed with gale force winds. It remained stagnant, and even as she turned down corners and pushed past those that eyed her up, she could not be rid of the stench. Catching hints of her perfume were a welcome reprieve, and the scent of jasmine that clung to her hair waved across her face every now and then.

She ignored the stares, ignored their taunts and attempts of luring her to cross the street. Liv did not look like a Dreadlord, did not even look as if she were dressed as a Vigilite agent. She wore too fine cloths of a blouse in pearly cream, and trousers of a midnight blue. Her cloak was too fine of make to be seen on this side of the city, but it was this last trace of magic she needed to follow. Who knew when that needle in her compass would begin to not work?

And so, at long last, Livia pushed through the doors into the dimly lit inn. Another stagnant smell affronted her, but her olivine gaze scanned over those in the room. The tug that lead her here had been familiar, and when Livia could feel her magic waning... growing silent... she knew it was better to seek out this last tendril than to go about her mission blind.

"Zinnia."

 

[Zinnia]

Business was good at the Copper Cod, it seemed, a fair few customers enjoying food, drink, and games in the establishment's commons. Zinnia took a deep breath as she scanned the room, setting a large, hollow, wooden box down by the handle on its top for a moment.

An older man watched her intently from his corner and the young woman felt a tinge of curiosity tug her that way. With the implements he had spread on his table, he looked to be a manhunter of sorts, perhaps some wizened mercenary who never gave up his trade.

He was not the only one in the room who stood out as a merc, either. A man clad in armors not unlike her own sat alone at another table, the remains of a card game that just ended sprawled across its surface.

Before Zinnia could fully take in the atmosphere, a shiver ran up her spine. That tense feeling she had experienced on the road, only more faint. Like that old, hooded figure that had approached her, the one who'd stared into her soul and told her he'd see her again, stranger though he was. It was an uncomfortable buzzing that filled her, like static that rolled across every inch of her skin.

"Zinnia."

She almost jumped, her whole body going rigid for a moment as though she were a cat who'd just found cause to raise its hackles. The gold-eyed girl turned on her heel to look back at the inn's entrance, and saw a familiar face...though perhaps not a friendly one.

"L-Livia? What are you doing here?" she asked, guarded. The last the two of them had spoken was...oh, Kress, it was immediately after they'd found out about Sylas' philandering. Zinnia gulped, a bleak mote of optimism in her chest. "H-here on a mission as well? Did the Guard assign you to assist me?"

 

[Mortivore Urn]

Spoiler: Music

Another woman in fine clothes, such as might be found with a wealthy merchant or a guild artisan, approached the first one in conversation. He could barely make out the name. Zinnia. And in response, Livia. But then their conversing dug below the reach of his ears.

A perfectly innocuous pair. And yet . . . he found something recognisable in their mannerisms, their gaits. Military dictum never quite left the bones of those who underwent it. It took one to know one, after all.

The fisherman's eyes narrowed. A furtive glance from Zinnia confirmed that he had been noticed. It might be time for a calculated assimilation with the patrons of the Copper Cod, to allow his eavesdropping to go undetected.

Tying his instruments to his belts, the fisherman rose and hefted his mug, making his way to the card table now bereft of a player, his tools clinking softly against his thick smock. His boots scourged the lacklustre floor of the tavern, rotten planks squealing like stung pigs below his heavy stride. A leathery hand slammed down on the empty chair across from Reven, who seemed to lament his losses with brooding thought. Ale squelched and sloshed in the fisherman's mug, responding to his brisk movement, like a water sprite seeking release.

"Another game?"

The deep and grave voice that crackled through the beard brokered this notion like an assumption, barely carrying the stamp of a question or courtesy. The small pebbles of his eyes cut into Reven, taking note of his surcoat and the armaments he displayed. Indeed, scarcely before Reven could accept or deny his request, he sat down in the chair opposite, which creaked its protest at his invasion.

Reven
Zinnia
Livia Quinnick

 

[Reven]

Sort of the problem with chasing rumor, wasn't it? Like trying to catch a fistful of wind at times. Reven already had the real job he was out here for done with, and truth was while he wouldn't have to worry so much about the law this far west in Liadain, that also meant he didn't have much to go on in the way of contacts and know-how and what not. Stranger in a strange land and all. Always heard about Vel Anir, never visited. Freelance work wasn't plentiful here. Made sense. You got a big ass military, you gotta keep them boys occupied somehow.

And, well, that was the whole thing with Lars and his rumor about murders. Maybe it was true, and the local authority didn't give a shit, or for one reason or another could make use of an extra hand, on account of the problem being so tricky—and that'd make for opportunity. But maybe the rumor wasn't true, just some talk sailing around from ear to ear, the vessel of which growing bigger and bigger with each telling. Hard to say, and, well, coin had a way of bleeding away every passing sunset. He couldn't go chasing rumor for long.

Looked like the best he might get would be more odd jobs. Special interest stuff. Stuff the military didn't care to deal with. Fine enough, he supposed, as he figured things out. When he was ready he could head back east, or north. Solid contracts abounded in Elbion, in the Reach, and even in Dalriada—he knew that.

An older man, older than Lars, sat down at his table then, and Reven looked up from his pondering to him.

"Not unless some kind soul in here can spot a man some coin," he said. He knew at least how to not go utterly broke from gambling—better than some gamblers.

He took the measure of the man, a quick surveying.

"You a fisherman? We can make our wagers in fish," he joked.

Mortivore Urn Zinnia Livia Quinnick

 

[Livia Quinnick]

"L-Livia? What are you doing here?" she asked, guarded. The last the two of them had spoken was...oh, Kress, it was immediately after they'd found out about Sylas' philandering. Zinnia gulped, a bleak mote of optimism in her chest. "H-here on a mission as well? Did the Guard assign you to assist me?"

She was a master in ignoring others, as if they were just part of the furniture. Livia entered on hurried steps and took a seat before her old classmate. They had been friends once, the last they really spoke had been at the party Thraah threw in Zpehyrine's honour, and the weekly baking nights before that... where certain truths came to light that night.

The last any of her classmates saw of Livia had been graduation, where she defied all expectations and graduated as a Third Rank when so many already had written her off as a Fourth Rank when she joined the Academy before the revolution.

Her dark brows quirked as she stared at Zinnia's familiar gaze. "The Vigilite."

The talents of being a living compass certainly held an appeal to the organisation, one that made Livia feel validated enough in her work.

"I... In my line of work..." Livia cast her olivine gaze around the room. "I made new allies and more foes. Some of them have been taunting me, and... I was a fool to think I was safe anywhere in Anirian territory. Someone has slipped me nightwood flower. You know, the sort of thing used to poison the magic in someone... you were the last thing I felt before it all..." Her steeled gaze fell back on her former classmate.

"I do not feel safe."

Zinnia
Mortivore Urn
Reven

 

[Mortivore Urn]

He stared at Reven in response to his jest. Not so much as a fish-bone of humor to be found in those dark, brooding eyes. His mouth puckered, twisting some of his long beard.

"Fish make for poor bartering. However, I suspect you might hold something else of worth." He picked up one of the cards, turning it absently in his hand, like looking upon a worthless antique. "Perhaps a trade in information." With this, he leaned forward, sliding the card back into the half-formed deck. His gaze pinned Reven in intense scrutiny. "I could not help but overhear your game. Whispers of a murderer in town. A sadistic mind, taking pleasure in the sport of killing."

He spoke intentionally at normal volume, not whispering nor shouting. Loud enough to be overheard, and indeed, his gaze flickered, hoping to catch other curious cats in the act of listening in.

"Who knows? The brute might be in this very room. What do you think?"

Reven

 

[Reven]

Hell, the fisherman was like Reven himself, if instead of coin he'd gambled and lost his sense of humor. Maybe old age had a tendency of abrading it away. Not for everyone though. Old Man Gellicht was one of the funniest goatfuckers Reven ever knew, raider or no raider.

Perhaps a trade in information.

"That's a new one on me," said Reven, thinking it odd but interested all the same. What could a few words hurt?

Damn if this fisherman didn't have eyes that could cut through granite though.

Reven took the deck and went about shuffling as the old man spoke. Overheard him and Lars, he said. Buzz of the town, those murders and their murderer, and why not. Lively talk came out of stuff like that.

...The brute might be in this very room. What do you think?

Reven set the deck down. "He'd have to be craziern a sailor swimmin after a siren. But then, crazy comes with the territory, don't it? Sport of killin. Hell of a way to put it. But I reckon that's how a scab like that thinks of it."

Mortivore Urn Zinnia Livia Quinnick

 

[Zinnia]

"The...the Vig...?"
Zinnia's eyes widened. That clandestine organization, the ones who might've seen Zinnia put in jail for ending Soleil rather than on the fast track for success if Salak hadn't intervened...they were the ones who sent Livia? Just considering the idea was an intimidating thing, but then Livia continued on.

"N-nightwood flower!" she repeated in the loudest whisper in recorded Anirian history. She looked around as though she'd just been roped into a conspiracy of some kind. None around seemed particularly suspicious or brutish, so she leaned in towards Liv and lowered her voice.

"I...I see. I don't know how much h-help I can be with that right now, but...I swear that I'll do what I can once I've finished what I came to Vel Luin to do," she promised her now-fellow Dreadlord. "Have you heard about the k-killings?"

 

[Mortivore Urn]

"Indeed."

His voice thrummed deeply, unamused and about as sweet as salt. A single finger tapped pensively on the table, betraying what his stony face would not.

"I like to put myself in the mind of those I hunt." A weighty pause. "One must think as the enemy, to predict them."

The fisherman finished his declaration by a deep swig of his ale.

Reven
Livia Quinnick
Zinnia

 

[Reven]

"Guessin you fish up killers then?"

'Cause they sure weren't talking about salmon.







Mortivore Urn Livia Quinnick Zinnia

 

[Livia Quinnick]

"Have you heard about the k-killings?"

"Yes." Livia answered, almost too bluntly, but her face softened. Despite all the chaos that happened when they last spoke, Livia had always held Zinnia in high regard. "Yes, I have. The Vigilite had me stationed in a town just outside the city, and I was to meet with some colleagues running an investigation. I work cold cases presently... but I imagine I was asked to step in because of my magic." The ability to find anything, anywhere, her magic would lead her there.

It made her coveted now that she was graduated to Dreadlord Quinnick. In the year since graduation took place, Liv had improved her skills in tracking immensely. She would have helped solve the string of murders quickly, made the Vigilite look great in the eyes of Vel Anir... but now she could feel the unsettling disconnect between herself and where her magic should be waiting inside her.

"Now I do not have access to it. Nightwood flower takes days to recover from... less than a day if we had a proper healer. Gods, I wish this was the Academy still and Proctor Urahil was near." Liv sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose and shutting her eyes tight. "Without my magic, I cannot find my colleagues. I.. have some of the paper work that came with my missive, but I do not know if I should trust my instincts or wait until I can brush off the poison."

Zinnia
Mortivore Urn
Reven

 

[Mortivore Urn]

He finished his swig, and the mug hammered down on the table, scattering a card or two. A brief shadow fell over his face. A memory flittered by his mind's eye, like a fragile butterfly, wounded and weakened. A dark-haired boy grinning wildly, teeth all askew, bright white and seeming to escape from his mouth, victoriously carrying a trout as long as his arms above his head.

After all these years . . . what had happened to this boy?

"My snares are set for many things." Removing his hands from the table, he occupied them by wrapping the silverite chain around his arm, covering the gesture below his smock. "My reasons are my own. But yes, I am hoping my bait will lure out this particular beast."

Reven

 

[Lilette Blackbriar]

Evening at last settled upon the land, beckoning forth Lilette from daylight slumber.

None had seen the Celestialist Sister since returning to her room earlier that day, something about her "work" and that she did not wish to be disturbed was all the reason given for the young woman's seclusion, though it were only a half truth.

Sundown was close enough for the Nun to descend from her room on the second floor in search of "dinner", her black and blue garb bringing out a freckled pallor which together drew no shortage of eyes to the stairs which strode softly, silently, down into the Copper Cod where no woman of the cloth should be.

Hers was not the only unusual face, however.

Silver eyes flicked through the crowd towards the only face that was at all familiar; Zinnia . She paused in her tracks, pale lips pursed by recognition she could not place. Certainly a face she associated with the Anirians but the last time she was walked these lands was...

...oh dear.

She was one of the young Dreadlords years ago.

The nun pulled her veil down and quietly excused herself to the bar, not that it would do much good given how unusual her garb was in this part of the city.

"Change your mind, sister?" the barkeep grunted.

"Nay, I'll have naught to drink. Porridge wilt do, methinks."

The man left to gather her food, giving her a moment to glance over her shoulder at Zinnia again.

One had to wonder if she suspected all those years ago.

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Zinnia Livia Quinnick Mortivore Urn Reven​