Open Chronicles The Unopened Letter

[VigiloConfido]

And she ran.

The air whipping at her face. Her hair. The curious or concerned glances from people on the street Mikos and her flew past. The dodging and weaving around them. The fluid motion of her legs. Her arms. The pounding in her chest. An exhilaration, all. The wolves of the woods and great cats of the Savannah must feel this way during their own chases. A pleasure so base and primal that even mere beasts could partake.

When she gained on him, Anima threw her arms around his waist and thrust her shoulder into the small of his back, tackling him. They tumbled to the street hard, the wind momentarily knocked out of the two of them. Some laborers, men each carrying planks of wood, whistled encouragingly as they moved around and passed by them.

Mikos started struggling to get away.

"Relax," she cooed to him. "Relax, Mikos."

She grabbed hold of his arm and turned him over, his back to the street, and mounted him, pinning his upper arms to the cobblestone to keep him mostly still. One of the laborers yelled congratulations to Mikos. Another jokingly shouted for them to buy a room at the Hat.

"You killed her! You're gonna kill me! You aren't right in the head!"

She leaned down toward him. Her nose touching his nose. Mikos shuddering at the closeness and the contact.

"Ssshhh...You've misunderstood," she said.

"Oh, that's rich."

"Lydia was murdered."

"Yeah, I figured that one out on my own."

"By a man named Belenor. For whom she worked."

His brow hardening in consideration. "And how do you know that?"

"You wore her face."

A grimace from him. "You just have to say it like that, don't you?"

She grinned. "That's the spirit, Mikos."

"Hey! I didn't wear anybody's--" a quick turning of his head left and right and a sudden quieting of his voice for the next word "--face! And what in Arethil does that even mean, anyway? Oh gods please don't tell me you mean that literally."

"May you say what your ears prefer to hear instead?"

He squeezed his eyes shut. His face scrunching up. An even harder grimace than before. "Okay, first, you bite me. And now, this? This? Wearing...doing...I-I think I might be sick."

Anima pulled back some. Still pinning his arms with her hands. "You're alright, Mikos."

A moment passed, with a few odd noises coming from his throat. But he didn't get sick. And he opened his eyes again.

"I think...I think I'm ready," he said. "For you to give me a little more detail on that. Like how...doing that...let you know everything you know. And how you got the letter."

She let go of his arms and sat up straight, still sitting on top of him. "It is a spell. A sorcery. You don their mask. And you become them. In body and spirit. And you enjoy living other lives, don't you?"

"Was...she...alive? When...?"

"No."

An enormous sigh of relief. Followed immediately by a look of disgust and a sharp glance at her. "Thank you, Anima. For making me even have the thought of it being somehow better to carve someone's face off when they're dead than when they're alive, instead of just not doing that at all. Thanks. Truly, I appreciate it."

"It is preferable. A delicate process. Too much squirming will--"

"STOP!" And he took a breath. "So...Lydia really is dead?"

"Yes. Murdered. By Belenor."

"I hope she finds rest." He sighed. "So you must have the package then too, right?"

 

[Raziel]

Pollinus ignored the man. He'd never liked them. It didn't seem right to profit from the dead like that. His class of people got a shovel and onto burying them then headed for the nearest pub to drink in their name.

"Pretty much same as all days there's been one," Pollinus said with a shrug. He looked exhausted. "Depends what shift you get and where."

Of course his shifts and duties depended on whether he was doing some work for his other employers or not.

"Hey Pol, thought you were done?" called a heavy set man with jet black hair at the door.

"Yeah nearly James. Wanted to get an expert to have a quick look and see if this was a monster?"

"Be quick. Bodies been moved down here," James opened the door and pointed towards the landing behind him. "Ready to go."

 

[Saul Talith]

Saul nodded quietly, paying acute attention to everyone around him.

Something about all of this still didn't feel quite right. In the back of his mind Saul was still searching for an ambush, waiting for a knife in the back. Most would have called him paranoid, but Alliria's undercity was still very much a dangerous place for someone like him.

As they stepped through the doorway Saul glanced around the inside of the room.

His eyes wandered, searching for broken windows or anything that might indicate a more ordinary form of entry. When he found nothing, he simply frowned and followed the guard to the bodies.

"When were they found?" He asked. "What condition?"

Questions that needed to be answered.

 

[VigiloConfido]

"No," Anima said.

Consternation from Mikos. "What do you mean, no?"

"You mean precisely that."

"Well who does?"

"You don't know. And you'd like to find out, wouldn't you?"

"Ughhh..." Mikos ran his hands up and down his face. Then pursed his lips and clapped his hands together. "Okay. You mind getting off of me now, Anima? So we can at least talk like normal people? I promise I won't run again."

A sly look. A touch coquettish. Her finger tracing a circle on his stomach. "Maybe you like it here. Hmm?"

"No. And I mean precisely that. Now would you please?"

"Very well."

Anima stood up and extended her hand down. Mikos, reluctantly, took hold of it and allowed himself to be aided in standing back up. He started dusting himself off.

And Anima said, "What was in the package?"

"I don't know."

"Mikos..."

"Yes? Anima?" His voice tired and strained by it all.

"What was in the package?"

"I don't know!"

A smile. "You want to know, don't you?"

"No. I wanted to deliver it and get paid. But now that's probably not going to happen, is it? If Lydia's dead, then the priest probably gave up on whatever it was they were--"

"What priest?"

Mikos shrugged. "Don't know. Didn't catch his name. I did some house repairs for Lydia and her husband Erik a while back, and she knew I did courier jobs too, so she called on me for this one. Seemed easy. All I had to do was pick up the package from a friend of the priest's in a little town called Ingholme, 'bout a day or two north of Alliria along the coast. Bring the package back here for Lydia. Wait 'til she's done and brings it back to me. Then I give it to the priest. Easy, or so I had thought at the time." He pointed at the letter in her hand. "Priest wrote that. Said to give it to Lydia with the package. What's it say, anyway?"

And Anima read the short letter to him.

Mikos narrowed his eyes. "Huh. That's odd. He just told me about the Church and what time of day. Why...didn't he do that for Lydia?"

A rush of exhilaration flowed through Anima. Her eyes sparkling with delight and her smile widening with pleasure. It was as if she had donned Lydia's mask again, yet distinct enough from the experience to be a new one all its own. Retracing ghostly steps. Unveiling secrets. What more do you have to tell, Lydia?

Mikos frowned. "I really don't like that look. That one. Right there. That's your 'I've got a bad idea' look." He snapped his hands up just as she was about to speak. "And! Before you ask, the answer is no."

"You want to know, don't you?"

"You're just not letting this go, are you, Anima?"

"Mikos..."

"Don't."

"Mikos..." she cooed.

He sighed. "Yes? Anima?"

"You want to know, don't you?"

He closed his eyes and drew his lips into a thin, frustrated line. "Alright. Alright. Where do you want to go? Ingholme's a bit of a journey. I don't even know if the priest is even still around, if he found out about Lydia's murder and all. So..."

"Erik."

 

[Raziel]

"Some time in the night I suppose," Pollinus replied. A sheet had been laid over the man. The blood must have dried as it remained clean white. Behind them he could here James telling the funeral men to wait a little longer for the body.

"Was seen after dark by an aquantaince. Same business associate raised the alarm when he didn't come to a meeting just after first light. I had to force the door myself. Found him on 'is bed. Just like this," Pol said as he pulled the sheet back. He grimaced and turned away. A faint creak came from above as the floorboards were disturbed.



Aurra looked around the room. No blood but on the bed. Nothing really disturbed around the room. Somehow she didn't expect a vampire would sneak in through an opening in the roof. Why would such a vile creature bother with a powerful man? There were always plenty of vagrants in the gutters to choose from.

She swore under her breath. If it wasn't Javy himself involved then this all could have been fine. Couldn't risk upsetting him by coming back empty handed. Couldn't even lie now to earn some favour as he'd sent a damned Templar along. Probably sent him as much to have an honest man cast his eyes around the place as to have an expert in the darker things of this world. Curse that bastard.

 

[Saul Talith]

Saul made his way over towards the two dead bodies, his lips thinning for a brief moment as he tried to hide the pain he was in while crouching down.

He used his good hand to pull back the sheet covering the corpse, his gaze wandering over wounds.

Myrelle would have been better at this. She studied corpses and the like, almost a coroner in her own right. Still, he knew enough to look for the signs, and much to his lack of his surprise there weren't any. This man had not been killed by a Vampire, or...well not the traditional sort anyway.

Saul vaguely recalled reading about some Vampire's from the West that didn't hold to the same traditions of those in the west. They tended to be more monster than man, tore apart their victims rather than simple biting.

He doubted this was that. "I need to see the upstairs."

The Templar said simply, standing up with no small amount of effort.

 

[VigiloConfido]

Mikos knew the way. Anima never did see Lydia and Erik's house during her Masquerade. She had come across familiar streets and buildings, each beckoning her forward or left or right with the promise of home soon to come. But such a base and pervasive feeling, that of home, was weak and shriveled when set next to the utter trauma of her murder. And so Anima never bothered. It would have been a dreadful waste. An unforgivable squandering.

An enjoyment, of her time with Mikos, both before and now. She walked behind him as he led them through the streets of the Outer City. His presence. His smell. Most of all, his aversion. It drew her in. Like an irresistible nectar. The more he wanted to pull away from her, the tighter she wanted to squeeze him. A fascination that called to her, to see the moment of another's innocence lost, and Mikos had yet to lose his. And her basking in Mikos' presence had driven the fear from her earlier hallucination out of mind.

As they walked, the sun's last stand on the horizon came to an end. Only an array of color, much like the painted glass windows in the Church of Many Divines, was left to defend against the encroachment of the night. A look to the east revealed the veil of rain already falling from the clouds, drifting its way over to Alliria proper.

"Here," said Mikos as they came to it.

Erik's house. A small and pitiful thing, in a row of the same, packed tightly. Only just bigger than the tenements in some areas of the city. One of Erik's neighbors, an older woman, carried a bucket of fresh water in her hands and pushed open the door to her own house and stepped inside, offering the two a weary smile, before shutting the door.

And Mikos said, "Go ahead, Anima. I can't wait to see how you introduce yourself. 'Hey, good evening, I'm the crazy lady who wore your dead wife's face around town, mind if I come in?' And then you're going to say that you don't bite."

"You don't," she said with a beaming smile and closed eyes.

"Ha! Liar, liar."

And they approached the door.

 

[Raziel]

Pollinus looked away when the sheet was removed. He had seen enough of that body today. It made him feel nauseated just knowing that it was right by his feet again. He wasn't a very good guard which was why he was happy to take coin on the side. Pol had thought he was done with this. He wanted to be back at home with an ale.

"Yeah, come this way," he said. The Templar moved slightly awkwardly. Javy never really cared about those he took advantage of.

He reached the landing and turned into the bedroom. Aurra was still there, looking over the desk.

"Guards let me in," she lied, not looking up at the pair.

 

[Saul Talith]

He recognized the girl from the tavern, though didn't say anything.

They hadn't exactly been quick in their approach, but she must have sprinted here to get to the guards before them. He frowned for a brief moment, then began to slowly look around the room.

The Templar's eyes wandered upward towards the hole in the roof, a grimace forming on his face as he stared at it. Half a dozen thoughts ran through his mind, most of them connected to the myths surrounding Vampires. Most of them were nonsense, chiefly the one he was thinking of now.

Some peasants thought Vampire's needed to be invited in to enter a home. It was ludicrous of course, and a dangerous thing to believe.

"Wasn't a Vampire." Saul declared openly.

He still wasn't sure what game the man back at the tavern was playing, but he wasn't going to be playing along.

 

[VigiloConfido]

Where the hell was Pol?

Corporal Yurik approached the dead man's house. Hey, look, mortuary cart finally made it. Good. Maybe they could clean up the dead man and the Guard could get this whole thing behind them. Facts were facts: the Guard wasn't solving anything. Random murder like this. Dead man was a mid-level merchant. Probably had lots of enemies. No wife or kids. No relevant family in Alliria.

There was the maid, sure. Lydia. But she was missing. How was the Guard supposed to know if she was the murderer, or if she too had been murdered by the same man?

So, without any close friends or family, who would even care if this mess went uncleaned?

Yurik entered the house, calling out, "Hey, Pol," without stopping for a response.

Then he found him. Upstairs with a...what the hells happened to that fellow there? Like a monster had done taken a bite out of his armor a few times, is what it looked like. And there was a girl, pale enough skin to look like the sun'd set her on fire. Probably some of those friends Pol didn't talk about. Well that was good. If they were here, maybe they had some stake in this. Dead merchant owed them coin or something. Fine. Let them handle it if they wanted.

Yurik took off his helm and cradled it under his armpit. Said to Pol, "I followed up with all the merchants who worked for the dead man. Wasn't much to go off of; no obvious enemies they could all point to. Dead man's maid though...uh, Lydia. Yeah, that's it. Lydia Stirland. None of those junior merchants had seen her in the past several days. Dead man ain't said anything about it either while he was still drawin' breath. Got her and her husband's house from one of them. Ah...what was his name...what was his--Erik! It was Erik." He said the street and the description of the small house. "But that's it. Anything else you wanna dump on my plate, you asshole?"

And he grinned.

Being the second to arrive on a scene was about as bad as being the first. Good chance to get tagged with a shit detail, like he had been. But Yurik had done his due diligence for the day. Enough to account for his time if and when their Sergeant, or gods-forbid the Captain, came around to ask.

* * * * *​

Anima took a moment before she knocked on the door. How strange, it would be, to meet Erik for the second time this day. Once with a mask, once without. And it occurred to her that she had not done such a thing before. Such an occasion could only have been made better, more intriguing, if she had not been as honest as she had with Erik earlier. If she had fully given in to Lydia. Become her in totality. Let herself be lost in the Masquerade.

"Well?" Mikos said.

Anima glanced at him. Then knocked. Admired the small, ornamental hammer and anvil decoration on the door as she waited. The letter "L" inscribed into the anvil, "E" into the hammer. How sweet.

Time passed.

Mikos narrowed his eyes. "Think he's not home?"

"You are unsure," Anima said. And she knocked again. A bit louder.

"Did he say he was going somewhere?"

"Not to you."

Mikos made a face. A bit of a pout. "Do you deliberately talk like that to confuse me? Also, do you talk like that to just me?"

"No."

"Great. I'm sure everybody else is as thrilled about it as I am."

Anima just smiled. And knocked for a third time.

* * * * *​

The door to the Church of Many Divines was kicked open.

The Jackal entered. Swinging his heavy crossbow right and left to check the corners to either side of him.

But there was nothing. The church was empty.

He sniffed the air again.

The scent had diverged. One path led here. The other, elsewhere.

And it seemed he had chosen the wrong path.

He left. And went back on the hunt.

 

[Raziel]

"Nah, that'll do," Pol replied, waving the other guard away.

Aurra wanted no more of this. It didn't look like the guards wanted any further part in the matter either. None of them had time to care about a rich prick dying. It was only because other rich pricks were worried about their necks that any of them were here.

She had held half a hope that it would be some supernatural creature. Then the Templar could have trotted off to find the rest of his witch burners and gone on a merry hunt.

"Maybe I should go and talk to the servant?" Aurra suggested. Pol wouldn't have the stomach for what might have to happen. She didn't know where the Templar stood, but didn't think it would be wise to try and tell him what to do.

 

[Saul Talith]

Saul nodded, though he'd already decided that as far as the idea of a Vampire went...there wasn't much evidence.

If any at all. "May as well."

Briefly he wondered if the Rangers would want to get involved. They generally kept to the Reach, but out of the three major organizations of Order around Alliria the Ranger's definitely had the best investigatory sense. He'd ran into a couple of them a little while ago.

Most of them dealt with stolen sheep and the like, but Murder was common enough.

"I'll listen in." He said bluntly. "Maybe there's something to hear."

 

[VigiloConfido]

No answer.

"I mean, really," Mikos said, "what's this worth to you? It's just a package. Someone's mail, basically. Shouldn't you, I don't know, be trying to get the guards involved in the whole murder thing? Get Belenor thrown in jail?"

"He's dead," Anima said.

"Oh. Of course. Why wouldn't he be. I should have known. Say, Anima, can you do me a favor?"

She reached out to touch his hair but he jerked back, and she retracted her hand. "You would be delighted."

"I'll take that as a 'yes'. Can you just tell me when I'm next? Give me the decency of that, at least?"

She said nothing. Just looked him up and down. Batted her eyes. Smiled. Then looked at the door again and knocked for the fourth time.

"That was somehow worse than an actual answer," Mikos said.

A noise. Coming up to the door. Footsteps.

Anima and Mikos exchanged sideways glances.

"Hey, uh," Mikos said. "Erik. It's Mikos. I worked on your house a little while back? I just wanted to talk to you. It's...it's about Lydia."

Nothing for a few seconds.

Then they heard the lock behind the door unlatch.

But the door didn't open. The sound of footsteps moving away.

Again, Anima and Mikos exchanged glances. Anima, more curious, and Mikos, more concerned.

"So...can we come in? Erik?" Mikos said.

Anima leaned forward. Placed her ear on the wood of the door, just below the hammer and anvil decoration. Listened carefully.

Whispered words. Hushed and muffled through the wood.

Anima slowly reached back and down to the hilt of her shortsword. Eyes flicking up to look at Mikos. Shock, and alarmed frustration, as he mouthed the words 'What are you, doing??' She raised the index finger of her free hand to her lips, slowly and quietly unsheathed her shortsword, then placed her hand on the door.

Shoved it open.

A man inside. Wearing a cowled robe. A blinding flash of orange and yellow.

And the fireball hit her in the chest and exploded.

* * * * *​

The Jackal stopped. Perked his head up when he heard it.

A sound, like thunder. But not exactly. Less rumbling, more percussive. And it didn't come from the storm clouds to the east, no. It come from the direction of the clearer skies to the west, where the colors of sunset still held some sway.

It came from the direction of the scent.

The direction of his quarry.

And he picked up the pace.

 

[Raziel]

This wasn't a wealthy district of the city. It was better than Aurra's domain in the slums. In fact it was nicer than the tightly packed stone terraces where house servants usually lived. Aurra surmised that her husband must have had a trade. Or maybe he was a footman for another upper class twat. One that was still breathing.

The templar had come with them. She had hoped that he would have gone by now. Far easier to get the answers quickly on her own, one way or another.

A flash of light cast long shadows down the street. It was followed by a low rumble that reverberated through her chest.

"That came from ahead," she muttered. Her fingers brushed against the hilt of a knife hidden beneath her travelling cloak. That had to have been magic. The house was only around the next corner. She was glad the templar was still here.