Open Chronicles Just Another night in Alliria

[Feyrith]

The night air was thick with fog, dampening the light of the few remaining fires lit in lamp posts along the streets. Even for the keen eyes of a Dark Elf it was hard to see much beyond ones arm. In spite of the obscured night, or perhaps because of it, these types of night made her patrol feel more important.
As if the air was thick with mischief any time the fog rolled in. Her ears were more useful for vigilance, in the past catching a squabble turning violent, or the clatter of a lock pick on a door.
It was quiet tonight. Almost no travelers in the streets, businesses shuttered and locked tight. Of course there were bound to be a pubs open somewhere but on this route it seemed the citizens had long since blown out their candles and tucked in.
The tap of Feyrith's boots breaking the silence and echoing against the cobbles into the fog. Her face stoic and unyielding like the stones she walked on.

She paused a step and squinted into the distance, there was something or someone ahead in the fog. Feyrith had patrolled this route enough times to have a vague memory of the layout of the alleys and streets. The boxes and carts left out, or the occasional oddly shaped sign post.
Something about the shape in the fog struck her as out of place.
Such things could become a twisted mirage on foggy nights. A torment that lead night patrols to being very unpopular among the less dark vision capable of the city guard. Feyrith could hardly blame them. Alliria was diverse enough to have genuine creatures of the night lurking in the fog. Albeit some of them working for the city. Luckily she had not had a night nearly as eventful as her run in with the cultists.

Feyrith stepped a little softer as she approached the shape.

 

[Rae'twyn Suvalissaere]

Spoiler: Music

The shape looked wrong, for it was in fact two standing close together.

At first, one might think it a tender embrace, mouths linked, arms wrapped around one another. A whisper would reach Feyrith's ears, laced with the rhythm and grace of someone whose honeyed tones might jog her memory:

"Rest now, little moon pig. Your shift is over. Your measly salary replaced with a glorious seat in the heavens. I bid thee adieu."

A blade slid out from flesh with strange silence, apparent only in shadowy forms. One form collapsed from the other, disappearing behind a cart, a harsh clatter of metal heralding their fall when their form vanished, revealing that the only kiss shared between them had been that of a vicious dagger, still dripping with sanguine tears of crime.

The figure that remained turned, like a dark, inverted sun luxuriating in its own solitary equinox, stepping atop this cart daintily, long hair flowing like shadowy tendrils in the fog. The sharp smile from the figure was audible rather than visible:

"Dear me, but I seem to have misplaced one of my daggers into a colleague of yours." He tutted, glancing at his own dagger like seeing it for the first time. "Terribly sorry." A hand swiped out from the fog and placed on his own chest, in a mock bow. "Please, be a good soldier and bring my deepest condolences to your lord commander."

The dagger clattered on the cobblestones before Feyrith. A distinctive ruby fragment decorated its unique and sleek drow steel. All that separated her from this murderer remained the cart, on which he stood, balanced with all the skill of an acrobat, poised to jump or run.

Feyrith

 

[Feyrith]

The shapes resolved into a detestable form indeed.
It was the drow from the bar. She had intended to track him down after their last meeting. If only to find a bit more information for the Lord commander's request. Just as before he seemed to have appeared like a curse only when she least expected to encounter one of her own. For some reason the exaggerated contrast of his ruby eyes and white teeth against the fog only infuriated her more.

Her brow furrowed in an easily drawn anger. "Too late for apologies after blood is drawn." Feyrith growled as her hand made for the hilt of her sword.
She could tell he was poised for flight, He would likely run before she could unsheathe her sword.
she readied to give chase as she drew it. Feyrith remembered from their short interaction and his odd movements that this Drow had some great love for dramatics.
The playfulness of his gestures promised a long night of cat and mouse. Or perhaps some even more undignified and humiliating farce.

Feyrith would have preferred to take strike him down to cut the theatrics short. Yet, she did feel some obligation to find out if he knew anything useful first.

Rae'twyn Suvalissaere

 

[Rae'twyn Suvalissaere]

Spoiler: Music

Indeed, the drow did jump from the cart and dashed. His dark silhouette shot into a nearby alley like a loosed crossbow bolt, his mocking laughter chasing him.

Spoiler: The Dead End

Tracing the echo of his dark delight, Feyrith would quickly come upon a dead end among two grand stone buildings, their tall architecture reminiscent of much of Alliria's inner walls. No immediate sign of the perpetrator, but parts of the fog seemed coalesced into thicker clouds - clouds shaped into umbral growths, on closer inspection - barrelling upward like a malformed tree. The shadow of his figure could be seen climbing its top branches, reaching a nearby rooftop.

"Aw, too late even for a heartfelt confession? What's a little spilled blood between kindred? How about we rise above such petty concerns?" The words wracked down stony walls like whiplashes, all pretence of sweetness gone. It ended on a note of near unhinged, hooting laughter. "Look on the bright side! Now your Lord Commander has one less mouth to feed! Ha-ha-ha-ha!"

These ephemeral steps of shadowfog seemed quasi-solid to the touch, no doubt what he had used for his ascension. But would they last?

Feyrith