It was almost midnight in the Shallows, and the air was thick with an obscuring mist that was wet to the touch. The atmosphere was cold and clammy. The countless wooden walkways and docks were slick and damp. Laterns glowed in the grey darkness like fairy lights, and the fog of the place disfigured the many words of the night. Changing and mutating them into distant sounds that an active imagination could take too far. It was a text-book night for the kind of cryptic swamp monsters of yore to come oozing from the bog, hungry for folk flesh and the children out beyond bed time. The kind of night for those inexplainable eldritch horrors to step out from the shadows and offer you a deal you couldn't refuse, the kind of night for a burglary to go wrong .The kind of night for anything to go wrong.
Say, for example, it was just the kind of night for an ominous cult, wanting to stay out of prying eyes, to conduct some sort of ominous ritual.
This was precisely the reason Lionel had chosen it as his questing night. For what better weather was there to hunt those who lurked in the shadows, than a night stock full of them? He was certain this would please his heroic companions.
Of course, every night was like this in The Shallows, the nightly mist a natural phenomena that settled about the place a widely known trademark of the eastern Allirian district, but that didn't make tonight any less ominous or intriguing. It just made every night in the Shallows ominous and intriguing, and for that, it was a paradise for a legendary hero such as Glorious Lionel Leonhardt.
The thought of his heroic self reminded him of the other heroes he was meeting tonight, and his face flushed excitedly at the thought. Real knights, he thought dreamily. Out here, in the middle of this urban sprawl, seeking out evil. Marta's brash straight forwardness, Rook's observant steadfastness. Here those two badasses were being heroes. Sure, he had only met them two days prior, but he was a hero too! He could recognize greatness in others, as surely as he could see the greatness in himself.
He hoped they saw it too. Or, at the least, they would see it. It's not like he was slaying any demons or stopping any cults when he had encountered them. Hopefully it would be different tonight.
Anywho, it was nice to see them actually getting their hands dirty in Alliria. He never understood why heroes were expected to be seen in places of legendary repute and grandure. In the beautiful natural groves of Fal'Addas, the splendoring extravagances of Dornoch, and even Western Alliria with its imposing towers. No, real heroes were out here in the muck and haunted peat. Real heroes cared naught for grandure, they cared for getting their hands dirty. Heroes like Lionel. Paladins like Marta and Rook.
Lionel sat upon the edge of a creaking wooden pier, clad in his usual "cloak of shadows", his legs merrily kicking lack-a-daisly over the edge of the habor's murky black waters, his "ancient rune-enchanted longsword" was unsheathed and naked, resting in his lap, the blade shining like silvery steel in the misty moonlight. His dull green eyes stared off into the gray mist, and from his merry face a jovial tune whistled outwards into the night. Above him was a large wooden post, a dim lantern dangling from a cast iron overhang. The spotlight made his golden hair almost shine.
"Marta, Lionel, and Rook. A merry band of three. Marta, Lionel and Rook, mighty heroes they be. Marta, Lionel, and Rook, a bane and fear to every monster and crook. Marta, Lionel, and Rook."
The tune was giddy, and perhaps a bit too excited.
"What's the matter with you?" Marta asked, gruff like and short.
"Nothing is the matter," Hector said quick as he trailed behind the veteran knight.
"Bull shit, squire," She grinned, though her tone was hard and cold.
"You, well,"
"Come on, don't beat around the bush, Rook,"Marta pressed.
The sound of his alias felt like a knife's point against his chest. Hector's brow knit together. "It just feels wrong is all,"
"Wrong?"
"Involving others in... this,"
Marta laughed a dry laugh. "Shouldn't really feel right, should it?" The two walked on, her voice heavy. "Dealing with all of this,"
Hector's frown deepened, as he recalled a cold night by a distant fire. Lorinna there beside him. "No, I suppose it shouldn't,"
She shoved him with a bump her her shoulder as they walked through the thickening soup of mist. "Someone's gotta do it though, and better to have a local help, than not," she jut her chin forward, as the sound of a jaunty tune worked through the veil of mist. "Boy knows the city, just as you know the Wilds," she cast her eyes up. "We'll do what we can to keep him safe, no doubt in that, but he's no less at risk just muckin about, all normal and ignorant like,"
Hector nod.
Another shove from Marta. "Don't go thinkin it ever gets easy, Rook," she huffed. The mists parted, and there upon a pier sat their guide. "Oy!" Marta called out as they approached, her wry grin sliced across her face as they approached.
Hector cleared his throat, and set his shoulders back as his lips turned stiff.
"Whatcha go and have your sword out for?" Marta asked in a hushed tone that kept all its bite.
Rook bowed his head to the golden haired young man.
The pair of knights wore cloth and hardened leather, weathered chainmail there betwixt the layers. Tones muted, edges frayed and planes of material scuffed and marked. At a glance, it looked like the old worn down kit of a pair of experienced mercenaries.
Upon closer inspection, one might notice much of the wear and tare was new. Though the rythm of the damage, the flow of the scratches and the site of the blemishes, told the story of combat. It'd taken Hector more than a couple of hours of work to get it looking just right. Was still a little too clean though. Least, that's how he felt.
"Whatcha go and have your sword out for?" came the familiar words from behind him. Marta, he knew at once. Brash and mirthful, definitely not Rook's. Lionel smiled a bear-trap grin, and turned his head to regard the knights.
Or at least, the once-knights, as they looked. Where once they had worn the gleaming plated of certified, no-nonsense officials, they know wore the garb of much less scrutable sword folk. Stray strands of flirty thread, frayed ends and scuffled leather. Weather-worn and travel-tested chain glimmered dully from the lantern light where the canvas of boiled leather wasn't.
As they stepped into the light, it became clear - at least to Lionel's gaze - that it wasn't a perfection deception. Some of the scuff marks hadn't had enough time to sit-in and weather, some of the chain wasn't actually rusting, but in the hero's humble opinion, that made them all the more believable disguises. If proper knights like themselves had garbed themselves in the actual kit of world-weary mercenaries, it would've looked like tower-folk trying to bust a cult. Awkward as they looked right now, it'd be so easy to spin a tale of down-on-their luck knights, looking for a bit of dishonest coin.
That was a tale that would sell.
"Why, for the creatures that dwell in the dark! OooOooo!" Lionel waved his hands about all mystical and spooky-like, before cackling and shaking his head. His golden Lockes swaying too and fro as he sheathed his "enchanted blade", making to stand with a lack-a-daisy panache.
"I must admit, I am made merrier to see you here in the Shallows!"he gestured to the ominous shantytown with a happiness as bright as the night was dark. "With our three swords combined, there is naught a foe we cannot slay! Ha ha ha!"
He laughed his hero's laugh, throwing his head back as he did so. Though as he lowered his gaze back upon the duo, there was a naked intrigue in his dull green eyes.
"But before we hunt such a beast, we must track it, no? . . Tell me, oh warriors of right, what can you share with me of our beast this night? Their goals? Their designs. . ? I find a beast is easier to track, when I know where it finds warm. What den it might favor. . ."
Marta's eyes kept sharp, and her lip kept crook. "Careful not to go and let them creatures see the shine of naked steel, hero,"
Rook nod in agreeance to Lionel's admittance. "It is good to see you as well, Master Lionel, more so in high spirits,"
Marta grumbled. "Do you always have to speak so proper like?"
Rook smirked as he turned to regard Marta. "Not always, no,"
A rude raspberry, as she shook her head and thought on the hero's request. "They're a bunch of lunatics," Marta said flatly. "Do I got that right, Rook?"
Rook nod, and thought back on the reports he had read. The steady scrawl of measured quill. "They are that," he tried to think through what horrors he had borne witness, in the wake of the people they tracked now. Butchery and mutilations. He steadied his breath. "We've reason to believe they are... abducting people within the city, as they have done so across the Valen and the Reach,"
Marta grunt, and turned her eyes out to the water and the mist before them, her back to the glow of the shanty town, and those folk that refuged there. "We had... comrades within the city, some time ago," her eyes cut back to the golden haired boy. "They encountered heavy numbers. Found a butcher's hut, in the outer district, with a passageway into the sewers," she looked back to Rook, her eyes hard. "A construct, some... strange machination gave wound to our comrades. Near killed two men we know to be highly skilled, and more than capable,"
Rook studied the young man's face. "We have informed the city guard, but, given the sheer size of the city, finding little more than the lone actor has proven, more difficult,"
"Our comrades took down the construct," she said surely. "Down in the sewers," a shift of her weight, a thumb hooked into her sword belt. "We are tasked to try and recover it, or at the very least gather information to form a better plan of action," her grin returned. "That adventure enough for you, hero,"
"Careful not to go and let them creatures see the shine of naked steel, hero,"
The quip was a conversational crossbow bolt aimed right for the hero's heart, though by some miracle (likely his lack of sense), it flew right over the his head instead. In response, the hero let out a giddy little laugh, like an academy-girl excited to receive a compliment. He paused for a moment mid-laugh, cleared his throat, and then let out a deeper, definitely-not practiced laugh.
"Ha. Ha. Ha! Hero is right!" He simply said.
The smile widened at "It is good to see you as well, Master Lionel, more so in high spirits," , and he laughed again. The hero lost in the idea of his own legend that his didn't catch the banter of the master and her apprentice. the sassy sound of pursed lips blowing a raspberry brought him back to reality.
"They're a bunch of lunatics," Marta said flatly. "Do I got that right, Rook?" The knight looked to her companion, her words even and level, like the words were as casual as an ale order.
She's like a stone, thought Lionel, and then frowned as he raised an index finger to his chin. No, a stone wasn't right, more like a bull. Setting aside the fact that she was muscled like one, it's just that Lionel hadn't seen her express anything but an ornery straight forwardness so far. Like you could present her any problem, no matter how insurmountable, and she'd just crack her knuckles and get to solving it.
Lionel nodded once, donning his heroic expression of contemplation, and then followed the no-doubt veteran's gaze to her companion.
"They are that," Rook steadied his breath, "We've reason to believe they are... abducting people within the city, as they have done so across the Valen and the Reach."
Rook was different. . . he couldn't quite get a read on him yet, why was that? Normally he was just so good - too good - at understanding fellow heroes. . .why couldn't he get an edge on him? A grunt of agreement from Marta stole him from exploring the thought.
"We had... comrades within the city, some time ago," her gaze struck him like a warhammer. "They encountered heavy numbers. Found a butcher's hut, in the outer district, with a passageway into the sewers". She looked back to Rook with a gaze of steel. "A construct, some... strange machination gave wound to our comrades. Near killed two men we know to be highly skilled, and more than capable"
Lionel's face was as excited as ever. His smile a gleaming ivory bear-trap, and his eyes giddy with a delight that flittered away from normality, and bordered on delusion. Rook would have no trouble spotting this.
Lionel caught the staring Rook's gaze, and tilted his head as he spoke.
"We have informed the city guard, but, given the sheer size of the city, finding little more than the lone actor has proven, more difficult," , he said, and Lionel could not help but chuckle.
"That's the Tower Folk for you." There was a smug playfulness in his voice at the mention of said 'folk'. "They sit and stand in their towers, so high, so high. Keeping the peace in their vigil stone-raised gazes, keeping the peace, they can see so much~".
Lionel shifted his gaze back to the muck and peat of the Shallows, and pouted. "And it's not like they don't see this side, they're Tower Folk, after all. They can look at this side from their sky-kissed buildings, they just choose not to see what they don't want to. They choose to keep their gaudy visors on the marketplaces of respectable folk, where the sun shines, where the light catches all that glimmering gold-"
Lionel paused for a moment, his eyes wide, just realizing that he caught himself monologuing. That wouldn't do. Villians were the ones that monologued. Hero's quipped and gave heroic speeches. He looked back to the knights and did his best not to look embarrassed.
"Even if you told them, and they knew, the pretty little tower folk won't step foot in the Shallows, even if they see something they don't like. Something they're not supposed to like" He simplified, and his grin widened in playful malign. "''Fraid of getting their shiny boots wet in the muck". He told Rook.
Marta spoke up again, carrying the conversation along. "Our comrades took down the construct," she said surely. "Down in the sewers. We are tasked to try and recover it, or at the very least gather information to form a better plan of action," her grin returned. "That adventure enough for you, hero,"
Lionel nodded, his grin ever excited, and flexed his fists on his hips. "Ha ha ha! Oh, well, there might not be any dragons, or demons, or any forlorn royalty in need of a heroic rescue." He sighed melodramatically, and cackled the faux theatrics away back into his usual excited smug grin. "But yes, 'tis more than enough adventure to fill out a short story, in what will no doubt be my long and storied lexicon of adventures."
He turned his gaze back the sprawling web of piers and wooden walkways, and he raised a gloved hand to scratch at his cheek.
"If you're wanting the sewers, you'll find dime a dozen entrances in the Shallows. Lot's of them are right riverside, where the Tower Folk's pretty little waste comes strolling in." He gestured to a vague outcropping of a circular stone archway in the distant fog, the only evidence of its existence was a distant latern's light glimmering bluntly off the stone blocks that constructed it.
"Course, there's plenty more entrances that aren't riverside, like your Butcher's hut. . . Place is called the Shallows, but the nefarious gangs that really run this place have their roots deep."
He turned back, looking no-less excited at the prospect of stepping the toes of criminal organizations.
"If you have a vague sense of where the construct went down, or where it was in relation to the Butcher's Hut entrance. I can lead you there, on stake of my golden hair! After-all, many are the hour, I spent sewer scouting. After all, what better place to find monsters, hiding from the light of day?"
A low laugh came from Marta's throat. "This kid," she said bellow her breath. "Aye, may it be so, and that we all add this short and successful venture into our lexicons of legend,"
Rook nod his agreement, though his lips kept neutral, near frown. He pulled from neath his cloak his leather-bound folio, flipped through the neatly bound pages, and landed on a map. Being half-elf, he could see the inked cartograph clear as day.
"It was near the butcher's hut," he laid the split spine of the folio on one hand, and pointed with the finger of the other, to a spot near the outer district. "From the report, our men escaped the sewers here," he pointed to a nearby spot along the river, just north of where they were. "And found refuge with some folk in the shallows,"
Rook showed the map closer to Lionel, and let him have some time to study it.
Marta clicked her teeth, and scanned the foggy horizon. "You ain't wrong about them tower folk, boy," the knight said with disdain thinly masked on her voice. "Them lot will just watch the small folk rot, if it meant they could go on sipping their wines, and giggling about their gilded eggs,"
Lionel laughed with practiced grace, and in that moment decided that he liked Marta. Her temperament might've been more brash, brawlin', straightforward wrecking house of a person, more alike a musclebound rival or empowered goon of some villain as opposed to the chivalric mannerisms that would've been expected of your average hero. But in spite of all that, she was still a hero, a hero of the common folk. A knight of the people's problems. She would not sit in some high-stone tower and watch The Shallows burn. If she saw smoke, she'd grab for a bucket.
Gilded eggs. . . Oh gods.
He shook the humor of the thought from his mind, and from his no-doubt smiling face, and shifted his attention to the map Rook had procured. His human eyes were not so keen as the half-elf's, and so he had to posistion his head between the lantern's glimmering light and the parchment to get a good glance of the map. Even with the light, he still had to squint.
However his gaze wasn't entirely on the map put before him by Rook. Sometimes, in a street rat's subtly, it swiveled a glance to Rook's prominently pointed ears. . . There was no comment made, no exaggerated gesture, there was just a sly, and intently hidden glimmer in his eyes as he attempted to stealthy sneak observations.
An Elf. A full-blown Elf. He mistakenly thought.
The roughed-up leather of Rook's glove trailed along a northern section of the river, and he nodded with genuine familiarity. That was an entrance he had used more oft than not, though it might've been less than heroic to admit that he had used it to escape the various gangs he so often ended up upsetting. A hero would never admit to running away. Especially not from something as unheroic as a gang.
"Ah . . .Yes . . . That entrance is familiar to me" He announced after a moment of exaggerated observation. "Let's waste not another moment of the moonlight's glamoured fortune! Ha ha ha! We have our path set before us, and a construct named to study and sunder!" He giggled, and began marching off in a cavalier cadence down the nearest planked walkway. The wood creaked ominously with every heavy-footed step the hero took.
As he walked, suddenly and without warning, in a flash of sinewy strength, Lionel drew his sword in a dramatic fashion! Thrusting the mundane steel upwards into the night so that its blade glimmered off the lantern light. The hero stared at the blade for a moment, giggling in an absorbed admiration, and then let the blade slyly and gracefully lower to his side, so that the tip was by his boots as he strutted.
He giggled again, wordlessly, and continued to make for that northern entrance. He did not bother looking back at Marta and Rook. He knew they would follow. They were heroes, like him, after all.
Rook almost laughed, enthused by the heroic flourish. As if a thespian, plucked from the very stage, this lion hearted Lionel. More bard than swordsman, by the squire's estimation. But who was he to cast such judgements.
Marta clicked her teeth. "Sheath the blade, Hero," she growled as she followed after. "The steel catches the light, and light will give us away,"
Not to mention that a naked blade oft meant trouble. Even those they weren't after would have their suspicions roused, or press the trio who moved about the planks.
Rook nod, and moved at the rear of their formation, his head on a swivel, he raised the cowl of his hood, to better hide his face.
Unbeknownst to trio, the eyes of a watcher had already sighted them. And skulked about the shadows behind them.
Lionel stuttered in his merry march, as if frozen by Marta's growl. There was a pause, purposeful and long, as the Glorious Hero pondered testing his fellow warrior's patience. Slowly, he chanced a glance over his shoulder and it's ragged cloak.
He saw Marta's disgruntlement and displeasure, and a moment later the blade found its sheath rather fast, if a bit disgruntledly.
He turned back around to march, flaring his "Cloak of Shadows" dramatically, though the flair of the moment was drastically reduced by the sullen, almost child-like way his shoulder's were slumped as he led the trio onwards towards the sewer entrance.
"Grah" he grunted, "I shall heed your judgement and wisdom, experienced hero. . . but I cannot help but inquire"
There was a brief pause as Lionel took a rightwards fork on the sprawling mazework of wooden walkways, keenly unaware to the stalker in the shadows. His footfalls falling soft and padded on the mossy wet path they walked, and for once his voice reached a level of volume one might even dare to call . . .subtle.
". . . We are three awe-stounding martial heroes" he continued, the trio approaching a tightly packed section of the trail, where ramshackle huts and shanty-town buildings sat to either side of the trail, all as tightly packed as a brick wall. He led them under the swinging lantern that overhung an empty open-air smithy, and past dimly audible conversations were held from the comfort of hearth-rooms, the occasional hushed whispering from back alley's could be deciphered just on the edge of one's peripheral hearing.
". . . So what if something see's us? There are three of us, and if another one of these mystery construct avails us, I have no doubt we'll be able to slay it without quarrel or qualm. . and I'm sure that'll no doubt actually help you identify what's availing you and your fellows so. You know . . why hunt a beast in it's lair if it'll be just as keen to come to us . . . ?"
He blinked as at a four-way intersection on the path ahead, one illuminated by another hanging lantern, a gang of drunken ruffians staggered slowly past from left to right. Lionel didn't even slow down as he stepped into an alleyway to his left with a graceful practicality, perhaps a bit too fast for the warriors behind him, his dramatic theatrics cooling off as the "Hero" found himself too much in his element to put up his usual act. Too absorbed in what was normally his nightly routine. His gilded exterior fading as he ducked laundry lines, turned side face to shimmy past stacked crates, all the while avoiding foot-deep puddles where the cobbles had broken loose and filled with water.
". . an' I'm not worried about the gangs. . even I don't struggle - I mean. . .Aherm. . a badass hero such as I has no quarrel swashbuckling a crowd of ten to seven hooligans, drunk on rum and spirits. . . an' honest speakin' you don' look loike th'sort to get all whinnied and tremblin' at a squad of armored men. Y'look like y'eat trained warriors for breakfast. . . Nevermind evil cults, that's got t'be loike an appetizer. All desperate robed men an' th'loike. ."
Even the way he spoke took a backseat to his natural inclinations, the rowdy river-bound slum-rat Allirian accent creeping at the edges of his vernacular, slowly conquering his practiced heroic annunciation. It practically dominated his speech when he paused at the edge of the ally-way, and gave "Rook" a particularly curios gaze. Not smug, not sharp, all blatant curiosity.
Marta scowled at the boy as the pair caught up, not too far behind despite Leo's deftness and speed. Shook her head, and tilt her brow towards Rook.
Rook's brow knit itself. His lips quirked into a frown. "Rattled," he shook his head, and the word away. "It's not so simple, Master Lionheart,"
"Bloody fuckin' right it's not," Marta muttered.
Rook thought a moment as they stayed at the edge of the alley-way. Fixed Lionel with a hard look. Cold and distant. A thing that remembered just as much as it saw. A thing more like ice, and frigid wind, than the warm embers that so often seemed to burn in the young man's gaze.
"These cultist, the Sightless, they operate in the shadows, at the fringes of society,"
Marta barked a laugh. "Fuckin nabbed me out of the Ten Penny Hen, the fuckers did,"
Rook half frowned. "If we just wait for them, their number will grow, and there is no knowing how many more Allirians will be pulled by their influence,"
"Or harvested for their bloody rituals," Marta spit.
Hector nod. "We've lost numbers to them. Fight them near our home, far and to the east, and have found their ilk here now,"
"Ain't nothing normal about this, kid, you might've already heard about their fuckery, and not even realized it yet,"
"Not two weeks ago, a young halfling man by the name of Lintho was found dead in his home, his organs harvested, here in the Shallows,"
Marta growled. "Eyes, plucked clean out of his skull, their sick calling card,"
"And as we mentioned prior, they... we found a construct, in the sewers of the city, our Order,"
A nod from the gruffer knight. "Big fucking thing, that near killed two of our best, powered by sorcery,"
Rook nod. "Likely blood magick,"
Marta nod again. "So, that's why we need you, kid, a guide, we'll keep you safe as best we can, and we don't expect you to get too deep in the shit with us, but getting us close to these fucks will go a long way,"
Leonhardt stared at the duo blankly in the alley way mist, and blinked. If you were staring keenly enough, you might've noticed the near-impercetible way one eye started blinking before the other. A moment later, his head tilted rightwards in confoundment. The moment was eerily similar to that of a ragged hound waiting beneath a lampost in the rain.
"That does not seem very scary to me, if I am being honest, noble warriors." He said, his voice an odd mixture of blank no-judgdment, and excitement. All back in it's usual camp heroic boisterism "What would rattle me, is missing all this fun! I mean - you said it yourselves! Stabbings in the night, slain mighty heroes in the dark, a worthy foe? - You Marta were nearly kidnapped. You swapped mettle with our enemy! Enemies that pluck out eyes and constuct fierce. . golemns to fight?! With blood magic?!" Lionel extended his arms out either side, and smiled his hero's grin. It was jubilant, and full of joy. There was stars in his eyes, and perhaps a little bit of jealousy too.
"Those are the kinds of stakes 'legends' are made of! If we prevail, we are made eternal badasses who had the once-in-a-life time experience for an actual adventure! And if we die?" Lionel shrugged, perhaps a bit stupidly. "We die heroes!"
He smiled again though, now a more mischevious edge to his scrappy features. "Though I know naught of your plans, I don't plan on dying. I find surviving makes for a better story. . . And speaking of shit."
Lionel took a brief moment to chuckle at his own joke, and after one look either way out of the alley-way to ensure no one was around or out on the street, he confidently strut fourth towards the center of the cobbled road. Three quick cockscure strides let him to a sewer grate at the far end. He tapped the ground with the tip of his steel boot, and instead of the thud of cobble, there was a clank of cast iron. A manhole cover, one leading to the labyrinth of the sewers. He took the opportunity to pose, hands on hips, chest puffed out.
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