Fate - First Reply A Failed Assassination

[Rizzo Bouchard]

Wild thoughts ran through Istra Lejeune's mind as she lay defeated on the floor. That she had chosen the wrong time and place. That she had underestimated her target. That she had not only failed her mission but also that this may well be her last night on Arethil.

The Grand Council had been incredibly and understandably on edge ever since "The Incident"--the awakening of the Great Dragon known as Drakormir and the terrible damage It inflicted on Elbion. They were very concerned about the enemies of Elbion, from the lowliest thieves and charlatans to the organized interests of foreign powers like the Empire, Vel Anir, and Oban, all of whom might seek to take advantage.

For order and for prosperity, the power of the Grand Council needed to be maintained. So the agents of the Grand Council, the Speculatores, were working tirelessly. Identifying known threats. Quantifying suspected threats. And in many cases dispatching these threats.

This had been one such attempt at dispatching a threat. In truth, Istra did not know anything of her target--guilty, innocent, or even if they truly had the capacity to be a threat to Elbion. And to her it did not matter. Istra had her mission. She had been told that her target needed to be dispatched, and that was all she required. She would see it done.

Only.

It did not work out that way.

So now she was here. Down on the floor in the target's room in a roadside inn close to Elbion itself. Her dagger was gone from her grasp after the struggle that had ensued. Her lightning magic--if she could even cast it, arcane fatigued as she was from being overworked--would be loud and bring further complications.

Istra looked up at her target. Wondering.

Spoiler: OOC

(Istra has failed to assassinate your character. Whether they were a legitimate target for assassination or not is up to you. I'll tailor wounds, or even if Istra has suffered any, to your character and how they fought her off)

 

[Mannelig]

“You’re absolutely shite as an assassin, y’know that, right?”

Mannelig sheathed his sword and cocked his head at the assassin on the floor before and a little distance from him. Around the inn his men stood, half ready to fight and the rest about halfway there. Most patrons had cleared out or found hiding spots here and there rather than risk stray lightning or swords though he couldn’t rightly blame them.

He took a moment to catch his breath and to get a closer look at his would-be murderer and frowned for a moment. They weren’t necessarily a teen, but by far not much older than a kid in his book. A young woman from the looks of things and, remembering how she’d fought, he figured she was professionally trained. Were she more experienced, he figured he’d not be standing here just now, but thankfully that wasn’t the case.

“You have the pluck and skill, I’ll give you that, kid, but you don’t get to be an old mercenary without knowing a couple things,” he continued as he touched the fresh electric burn on his jaw and ignored the scorch mark on the wall behind. “First of which, you don’t go all out on someone in a packed inn full of your target’s soldiers.”

The mercenary captain thought for a moment and then extended a hand to the assassin on the floor.

“If you’re willing to play nice, maybe I can give you a couple of pointers and you can tell me why, pray tell, another mage wants me dead. Or at least how you did that knife trick earlier. That’s a new one.”

Istra Lejeune

 

[Rizzo Bouchard]

It was supposed to have been quick and quiet. The man was supposed to have been asleep. The locked door to his room proved no obstacle to her Alteration magic, but as soon as she entered the room things had gone terribly awry. The man was up, armed, and a ferocious fighter. Istra was thrown on the defensive immediately, blocking blows from his sword with her plate vambraces, but still suffering a cut on her left arm, just above her elbow. Somewhere in all of that her dagger had been ejected from her hands. The only magic she could muster once disarmed were a couple of weak arcs of lightning--ineffective. The man then turned a block of his sword into a forward thrust with the pommel, striking Istra in the chin. Her legs crumpled beneath her and down she had went.

And that led her to this...unexpected stay of execution. Istra (her legs still feeling as though they had turned to honey) just looked up at him apprehensively. Bemused as to why he hadn't finished the job--she would have. The comment about her being "absolutely shite as an assassin" didn't bother her. In this case it was objectively true.

Istra lay on the floor, reaching across her chest to clutch at the wound on her left arm. She was as exhausted by the effort as Mannelig or even more so. In the past seventy-two hours she had slept once. Briefly. She understood fully that it was an unprecedented and urgent time for Elbion, and so placed her work above her own needs. And there was a lot of work to be done. Too much for the surviving Speculatores to handle, and the Grand Council all expected it to be done yesterday. Naturally. Much was at stake.

The man continued to talk. And then he mentioned that the inn was full of his soldiers, to which an inescapable flash of surprise sparked in Istra's eyes. The damned informant had not mentioned that. Either he had deigned not to share it or he had not bothered to do the proper ground work. It was the nature of these informants; more often than not they were of untrustworthy character, gave poor information, or were in a variety of ways unsatisfactory. But they were a necessary trouble. The Order of Speculatores needed its eyes and ears, even if at times they could be clouded or muffled as if drunken.

The man extended a hand. She eyed it, still thoroughly bemused. Yet attempting to complete her mission as given to her was not an option. Her best (perhaps only) course of action was humility. Accepting the man's mercy and entertaining him as much as she could.

Istra didn't know if she could stand on her legs yet, so didn't reach for his extended hand. She glanced in the direction her dagger had gone--it had flown and bounced somewhere in the room. "Alteration magic," she said, answering the question she quietly preferred to answer. "The metal of the blade is made to be like parchment. Foldable. A timely flick of the wrist and a dispelling of the magic, and the blade seems to appear from nowhere in my hand, solid as steel again."

A subtle pivot away from talking about her and more about him. She said, "You're a captain." Let out an exhale. "I did not know that."

She may have gotten the rank incorrect, but the sentiment was still true. A tactic in her current conversation or not, it was still infuriating that the informant hadn't shared that knowledge with her. The soldiers in and around the roadside inn had given her slight pause when first she had approached and entered, but the informant made no mention whatsoever of any association between the target and those men.

Mannelig

 

[Mannelig]

Mannelig wiggled his hand back and forth at the woman's comment on his rank.

"Eh, Captain works as well as any other. Depends on the culture I'm working with. Most like to call me Captain, but I've been called Colonel a few times; Once some noble fop called me a Hetman, whatever rank that is."

He gestured at two of his soldiers who came forward to help the woman up, albeit warily, and set her in a chair at a table. The fight had started in his room, or just inside the doorway, but as all fights do it had gone slightly further out and into the main room. Here and there tables were righted and ale repoured, though almost everyone short of the oldest of regulars kept a sharp eye on the mercenary and his assassin. Another of his men pulled a small roll of cloth and began tending to the woman's wounds, though Mannelig couldn't fault the man for keeping a close eye on the woman's hands, just in case.

"I figured it was somewhere around the alteration school, but wanted to make sure. Neat bit of magic, that," he said as he raised a hand to signal the barkeep for two mugs of ale. As the man gathered the mugs, the mercenary took a seat opposite of the injured woman.

"Now, seems to me, someone wants me dead. Normally this only happens when someone skips their bill, which I don't think anyone is behind with my men and I, or if I upset someone by working for a competitor which... is usually par for the course, honestly, but I'm rambling," he looked up as barman set a pair of mugs on the table, taking one and pushing the other to the woman across from him. "Anyways, I'd like to know who exactly wants me dead so I know who to avoid for a bit, but it ain't the end of the world if you don't want to say or just plain don't know. Drink's for you, by the by."

Istra Lejeune

 

[Rizzo Bouchard]

Her training in the Order of Speculatores was the opposite of her wealthy and aristocratic upbringing: it had prepared her for a lot of things. Unpleasant things. Difficult things. Harsh things. It was a callous world out there, very often a brutish one, and agents needed to be ready.

What Istra wasn't prepared for was this. Mercy. The help up from the floor and into the chair, the tending of her wound, this continuation of the forbearance by the man she had just attempted to kill. From her experience as a Speculatore she saw three options at a juncture like this: death, torture, or conversion. She had done all three to other people who had done far less than she had to the captain here.

He talked only briefly on his rank and on the knife trick. Then he got right back on task. Which was a problem. The Order of Speculatores had a public face in Elbion, and while there may be this rumor and that about their service to the Grand Council, it has always been denied that the Order carried out assassinations and other dark tasks. That public face needed to be maintained.

And then...the situation became even more befuddling. She was offered a drink, and the captain went so far as to give her an out on confessing who had wanted him killed.

Istra glanced at the mug, then back to the captain.

First she had expected to be killed after she went down. Then she expected to be tortured for information. The third option, then? Was the captain trying to convert her to his side? Trying to keep her alive to hold leverage over her for something, a favor to be called in at some point in the future perhaps? It appeared to be the case, but Istra was puzzled as to why.

She reached out with her uninjured arm and grasped the mug. According to her training, any gifts or offers from one's captors was to be refused, but she was far more concerned with getting out of this situation alive. And to do that, the game needed to be played. She took a dainty sip, enough to be polite, and grimaced hard at the taste and the burn of the drink--she was most certainly not a drinker. But the small aside to have that little sip gave her the time to formulate what she thought was the best response in her mind.

"Thank you, captain."

She set the mug down on the table.

"Is the name Donovan Malak familiar to you?"

The informant. Also the informant who had relayed questionable intelligence. He had not spoken of the captain in very endearing terms to his Speculatore handler. Perhaps this had nothing to do with the security of Elbion and everything to do with a personal vendetta of Malak's--it wouldn't be the first time for the captain, enduring a ordeal like this. Normally it was not good protocol to potentially expose an informant, but these were not normal times. Elbion suffered previously unfathomable devastation in the wake of the Great Ones' awakening, and bad informants were a liability.

Maybe the captain knew the name in some capacity. Maybe he did not.

Mannelig

 

[Mannelig]

"Malak, eh?" Mannelig leaned back in his chair a moment and sipped his ale. "Fur trader a few villages west of here, if I remember correctly. Little rat-faced fellow. Pock marks all over his face. Looks like he'd bolt for the door if you so much as breathed at him harshly. He's not the type to have someone killed, but he'd sell his mother for a copper coin. If you're relying on him for information, well..."

He gestured vaguely around them, indicating the botched attempt, his soldiers, and the general situation.

"May want to source different informants. Baker just north of here, for instance; Vidal. Knows all the comings and goings here. Charges a fair price, too. Its a bit high, but its solid information. I get wind of my contracts through him when I'm out this way and its rare he's wrong on something. Tell him I sent you and he'll help you out."

The mercenary noticed the woman's distaste for the ale and chuckled. The food here was okay, the drink was abysmal, but when the next inn was a full day by wagon, the locals made do.

"The booze here is pretty terrible. If you want, I can have one of my men bring something else to drink. Consider it a thank you for proving to my men that I'm not ready to retire just yet."

He took another swallow of the subpar drink and thought carefully for a moment or two.

"You're probably wondering why you're not dead, or at the least having hot pokers shoved up into tender areas, aye?"

Istra Lejeune

 

[Rizzo Bouchard]

So he was aware of Malak, but he did not say anything explicitly of any past interactions with him. No direct indication of why Malak may have brought the captain specifically to the Order's attention. Malak was of poor character, such was a fact, but that had no bearing on whether or not the captain was a threat to the security of Elbion--truth stood irrespective of the speaker. The problem, of course, being that Istra had yet to determine what the truth about the captain and Malak's accusation was. Another symptom of the disease of being overworked and undermanned for the Order; the time of urgency, with a hint of desperation, had eroded the surety that came with due diligence and proper groundwork.

A quiet clawing thought in the back of Istra's mind: that some, maybe all, of her targets over the last few days had been innocent. She squelched the thought immediately. For Order. For Prosperity.

Istra made no comment on Vidal.

And the captain had an interesting view on things, if he was being sincere. A thank you. For proving to his men that he wasn't ready to retire yet. Istra thought she knew the full scope of reactions she could come to expect from the people to whom she was tasked to subject to unpleasantness. Even discounting that, humility was something that was practically nonexistent in the upper echelon of Elbion's wealthy nobility, and seeing it in the captain was like listening to him speak a foreign language.

You're probably wondering why you're not dead...

Istra kept her composure, but internally she had tensed. Here was the main course of the conversation.

"That has crossed my mind."

Mannelig

 

[Mannelig]

"Consider it a bit of professional courtesy," he said with a shrug. "Mixed with a healthy dose of concern, though that's likely not the perfect word to use. If you're wanting to continue the lifestyle of an assassin, your best bet is to be thorough and trust your gut."

He gestured to the inn around them, namely the men he commanded. There were a good number keeping an eye on their leader and a few hovered close by, but all were heavily armored and armed despite being inside the inn. Paranoia went hand in hand with the life of a sellsword, though usually not quite to the extent currently. The recent attempt on Mannelig's life had them on edge and he knew it.

"For example, you knew where your target was, but didn't consider who might be with him. Assassins who can be recognized don't live very long, either because they get identified and are forced to 'retire' by their handlers, or because the guards or watch identify them and hang them up on the nearest tree. Toss in you either didn't spot or, more likely, didn't correlate armed mercenaries to the mercenary leader you were to kill. Even if you'd succeeded, there's a high chance you wouldn't have made it out in one piece, if at all. Wounds happen, but a crippled assassin is a liability, regardless of their successes."

Mannelig sat back in his chair and mulled over his next words for a moment. He wasn't sure why he was in this situation, but it felt... necessary? Right? Even if he couldn't place the feeling or the need, he knew he was somewhere on the right path.

"Also, may want to tailor your weapons to the job. I'm not sure on your training - saw the knife play and the magic, so there's that - but men wearing heavy armor are hard to crack. Yeah, the knife can get in places, but sometimes the right application of brute force behind a hardened point works far better. If you see plate armor, use a crossbow, especially if you can't get close. Had an enemy scout pull that stunt near Vel Anir once. I got lucky that there was a mage specializing in healing magic an hour's ride away. Crossbow bolt went straight through my breastplate and punctured a lung. Not a fun day, but it was a learning experience for sure."

Istra Lejeune

 

[Rizzo Bouchard]

Istra listened in what appeared to be an astute manner, nodding along at key points, but in truth it was a perfunctory one. None of this was what she expected, falling into none of the three domains of outcomes. This simply could not be it--the captain had to have an ulterior motive of which Istra was not yet aware. She frankly did not believe the captain's word that this was a professional courtesy: she could not see any reason why he would forego his own self-interest for her sake.

But if playing the part of the student to this captain's teacher was how she could extricate herself from this terribly disadvantaged situation, then she would do it. The content of his advice was irrelevant, but she would have to pretend as though it was not.

Not a fun day, but it was a learning experience for sure.

Build personable rapport. "I can relate to that."

Humility. She sighed in a defeated manner and presented a half-smile.

Assurances. "I appreciate your professionalism in this regard, Captain."

Say no more than is necessary. What would happen next was not up to her, but there was nothing to gain by potentially aggravating this eventuality.

Mannelig