The two riders trotted slowly along the dusty, half-way overgrown westward road.
“I have to admit, I’m a little surprised no-one’s tried to make off with our horses yet,” Tuan remarked idly, leaning back in the saddle and letting the reins hang. “Golden opportunity for a quick getaway from this craphole.”
Eli opened his mouth to reply, but was interrupted by Dionysus’ sharp snort, the Deathcharger tossing its bony head for dramatic effect. Tuan’s mare nickered dismissively, shaking her mane lightly.
Tuan arched an eyebrow and leaned forward. “… you gone and got yourself your very own bodyguard?” The she-rogue chuckled and rubbed the horse’s mane when the mare whinnied playfully in response. “You clever girl, you.”
Eli let show a lopsided smirk. “Never thought that about ya, Dio.” The spectral steed let out a somewhat slighted huff.
Tuan sobered up and straightened herself. “Well, here we are. More or less.”
They tapped their respective mounts into a short gallop, thundering north off the path, through a gaggle of screeching vultures and across the short stretch of windblown grass to the small pumpkin farm that sat unassumingly between the road and the cliffline bordering the Longshore.
The farm appeared virtually as derelict as the stead they had departed from minutes earlier. Handfuls of wild-seeded pumpkins sat forgotten in random clumps on the hard-packed soil, most of them either thoroughly dried-out or halfway rotten. At the far north end of the field, a small cottage still stood with a ramshackle windmill creaking morosely nearby whenever the breeze would pick up enough to rattle its well-worn sweeps.
As was to be expected, a collection of homeless and transients had taken up a form of residence in the building. Outside, by the doorway, one man was stood that appeared only slightly less destitute than those unfortunates idling about the fences – although in a hustler’s terms, he could most likely be considered the equivalent of a Stormwind merchant noble.
He had shoes. On both his feet.
“Two-Shoed Lou,” Eli muttered under his breath. Tuan cracked a brief, lopsided smile.
The man stepped up as the two riders approached, raising his hands to shoo them away. “Look, we ain’t got room for no more …” He trailed off, noticing the arrivals’ equipment and the bladearms hanging from their belts. He quickly backed off, waving his hands frantically. “Uh—whatever’s happened, I didn’ do nothin’!”
Tuan merely looked squarely at him. “Horatio sent us.”
The hustler’s attitude shifted immediately. “H-Horatio sent you?” He glanced around quickly. “He’s not here, is he?” Just as quickly, he dropped his eyes to the ground and rubbed his neck awkwardly. “Heh … he knows I wasn’t hidin’ from him, right? Was just tryin’ to lay low and all that, ya know?”
“No, he’s elsewhere,” Tuan replied with a little smirk as she swung herself off her horse. “You’re Two-Shoed Lou, then.”
Lou breathed a visible sigh of relief, readjusting the thoroughly dusted-over and half-way mangled top hat that very much looked to be at least two sizes too small for his head. “Right then … um, yeap, that’s me, how can I help you?” He threw a clumsy bow.
Eli dismounted as well, taking Tuan’s mare alongside Dionysus and securing the two horses’ reins to a nearby fence while his companion stepped up to Lou and began talking. Letting his mind zone out the she-rogue’s bartering with the hustler, the Death Knight took the opportunity to examine his surroundings – as little as he could pick up with his nigh-complete blindness. That said, he still registered the despondent silhouettes of the drifters littering the small farm, either wandering aimlessly around on sitting slumped against the fencework.
“‘Ey thar,” a gruff but fairly steady voice called out to him suddenly. “Ya look like a right fine fellow. Well, ‘side from the whole dead thing.”
Eli turned slowly, identifying the voice’s owner as a sturdy man propped against a woodpost nearby. “I s’pose,” he replied in a quiet drawl.
“Heh.” Eli heard the approving grin in the other man’s voice. “A Westfall boy. That means yer a good one. I expected as much. What’s yer name?”
Eli felt his body language relax somewhat. “Dun have much of a name left, since … well.” He cracked a lopsided smile. “Most folks jus’ call me Eli,” he continued matter-of-factly, before the conversation would devolve too much.
“Eli? Ain’t ringin’ any bells right off the top of mah head …”
Eli shuffled his feet, turning a little more directly towards the voice’s source. “How ‘bout you? What’s yer story?”
“Me? Oh I’ll tell you who I used to be.” The man’s voice picked up in a bombastic crescendo. “Jim ‘Candles’ McHannigan, that’s me, an’ back before those damned kobolds gave me a permanent limp, I was William Pestle’s number one candle supplier! Fel, I even came up with the line ‘I TAKE CANDLE!’ Yeah, that was me. Kobold would say ‘you no take candle!’ and I’d just say back ‘I TAKE CANDLE!’ and then bash their brains in!!”
The man steadied himself, cutting off the tirade abruptly. “Good times … the best times,” the candle-hunter mumbled, momentarily lost in thought. Then his eyes flashed back to the present, and Eli felt their sharp glare land on him again.
“Now? Can’t even use the bathroom without assistance. Damn, but I’d love to storm down into those mines one last time and just wring every one of those scrawny little necks.” He spat onto the parched ground. “Won’t make me walk like a normal person and it sure won’t get me a job, but damn would it feel good.”
Eli couldn’t hold back a crooked grin. “If I ever find myself in those parts, I’ll make sure ta carry over yer message.”
Jim let out an explosive guffaw. “Hah! You do that, my friend! One for vengeance sake!” He slapped his knee and sat back again.
Sensing that the impromptu conversation was over, Eli turned his attention to the building behind Lou and Tuan. Ignoring the she-rogue and the hustler, the Death Knight ghosted quietly past them and stepped gingerly over the cracked threshold and inside.
“Dinner’s ain’t done yet, so yer just gonna hafta wait a while longer—” began an elderly woman’s voice to his right as he entered. Then he felt her turn around and jump back. “Oh Holy Light!!”
He turned, as slowly as he dared, and raised a hand to his hood, smiling gently. “Howdy thar, ma’am. Didn’ mean t’ surprise ya.”
The woman breathed out, putting a hand to her chest. “Goodness grace did you ever scare the livin’ daylights outta me, sonny.” She righted herself. “Say … aren’t y’ a Westfall lad?” She perked up before Eli could reply. “Y’are! I’d rec’nize that lilt anywhere.” She chortled warmly.
Eli joined in the small laugh, feeling a measure of relief washing over him. It felt … good, hearing his own accent coming from another. It felt … like he was home.
“At least ya look like yer gettin’ yer meals on time, sonny. Well … I wouldn’t be able t’ tell, what with yer … eh … bein’ what y’are.” He noticed an awkward smile in the woman’s words.
He merely smiled reassuringly. “No worries, ma’am. I’ve learned to live with it.” He sensed her posture relaxing and heard a light giggle at the only slightly unintended pun.
“Y’wouldn’t have a name, now?” she continued as she turned back to the work table in front of her.
The Death Knight shuffled his feet a little awkwardly. He decided to keep it brief.
“They call me Eli.”
The elderly woman paused. “Eli? Eli … hmm. Doesn’t quite ring a bell, but then again …” She resumed her routine. “I’m Mama Celeste ‘round here.” She gestured around the room.
Eli looked around – as well as he was able. True enough, the single room was filled with homeless and destitutes, most of them huddled around the unlit fireplace, ever so often jostling each other for a spot on the thick bear rug that still, amazingly, decorated the grimy floor.
“Life in Westfall’s hard, sonny! Every day’s a struggle. We can sometimes go weeks without a decent meal. That’s why’s’important that we all help each’oth’r out.”
Eli craned his neck to catch a whiff of the work table’s contents.
“Makin’ dirt pies, sonny!” came the upbeat response.
Eli actually blinked. “… dirt pies?”
“Yep! Grind up some coyote tails, mix ‘em with fresh dirt, and there ya go! Mm, just the thought’s makin’ mah belly rumble …”
Eli felt something constrict within him. “I’ll be right back,” he quipped tersely and stalked outside.
Tuan was, apparently, still in the middle of softening up the slippery hustler they had been sent to get their information from. Lou seemed to be caving, though.
“Listen, I really shouldn’t be talking to you," he insisted, both hands raised defensively. “But, yeah, I owe Horatio a favour or two. I don’t really know nothin’ ‘bout what happened to the Furlbrows—”
Eli strode up to them, the sudden chill of his presence cutting them off mid-sentence.
“What’ve we got, Tuan?”
She arched an eyebrow at him.
“Provisions.”
She gave him an odd look. “Last saddlebag to the left.”
He immediately strode off, leaving the other two to resume their interrupted conversation. A quick rummage was enough to produce an armful of dried jerky and toughened bread, along with a water sack. Without further ado, Eli stomped back into the building.
There was a brief chorus of quiet exclamations, and then he came out again, empty-handed once more. Tuan had just finished her business with Lou, dragging what looked suspiciously like a large crate along with her as she walked back to where their mounts were standing.
Lou called after her when Eli went past. “Be careful with my old house! I plan to hand that off to my kids when they move out!”
Eli caught up with Tuan as she was stopping by her mare, tugging out a string of rope that she fastened around an iron ring still nailed to the worn old crate. “What’s that fer, now?” he inquired, only slightly dubious.
Tuan shot back a light grin. “The ticket to the lead Lou might have for us.”
Eli couldn’t help rolling his eyes. “Oh, really now.”
“Yes, really. Get moving, we go on foot for this one.”
The mismatched pair of adventurers quickly stalked off westward, moving parallel to the road nearby but in the direction of a small, stony hill not far from the abandoned farm.
“So what was that back there?” Tuan inquired at length in a low voice. “With the food?”
Eli’s face hardened slightly. “If those people can spend at least one night with their stomachs’ full – an’ not on dirt pies – it’ll be worth it.”
The she-rogue raised both her eyebrows at this, but then her face relaxed. “You’re a kind person, Eli,” she replied in a surprisingly soft voice, smiling gently.
Eli felt as if the world around him suddenly flickered and flashed – instead of the dusty, yellow-brown grass, the earth had turned a blazing orange and sinister purple; instead of the lazy, hot breeze, the air now echoed of supernatural entities and a malevolent darkness that would wish nothing higher than to devour the known world. The only thing that remained steady was the voice of the woman next to him: different, yet so eerily familiar.
The moment lasted for no more than a fraction of a heartbeat. Eli blinked his eyes quickly, his mind returned to the present once more, and instinctively stole a glance at his companion. She had gone a few steps ahead, still with the crate in tow, and had crouched down slightly as if to avoid detection. Eli picked up on the cue and bent down as well as he was able, given his slightly sturdier armour and much stiffer joints. Near as he could tell, it didn’t seem like she had noticed his momentary lapse, and he was in no mood of explaining himself. So he kept quiet.
Tuan carefully dropped the crate onto the ground and ghosted forward a few yards. Eli squatted down beside the wooden construct, waiting patiently. He knew well enough that covert observation was the woman’s forte – he’d only get in the way if he tried to follow along.
A few seconds later, she returned. “As expected,” she reported under her breath. “Kobolds, and judging by their numbers outside, the mine’s going to be pretty much packed with them.”
“Mine?” Eli raised an eyebrow.
“We’re at the Jangolode. This is where Lou said we’d get our lead, if we play our cards right.”
Eli reached out, his finely honed spatial awareness allowing him to place a hand on the crate without so much as glancing at it. “So you’ll head inside an’ snoop, an’ I’ll sit outside in this an’ pretend I don’t exist?”
The she-rogue chortled in a very ironic manner. “Hardly. You’ll be going inside, with the crate, and when you get to the bottom, that’s when you’ll pop it over your head and pretend you don’t exist.”
Eli blinked very slowly. “… say what?”
“You only need to listen, very carefully. I’m thinking you’ll be the best person for that.”
He let out a slightly exasperated huff. “And you?”
“I’ll be the one staying outside, keeping tabs if anyone decides to pay a visit. If I see people entering, and you can confirm some kind of meeting or pickup, we’ll have the lead we’re looking for.” She grabbed the crate and shoved it into his hands with a turd-eating grin. “Ready to rock this joint?”
Again the world swirled and swam, but now the air was cold and stagnant, hemmed in by massive walls hewn from dark rock and fel iron, and his nose was suddenly thick with the stench of Orc blood and demon ichor.
He blinked his eyes again. Tuan shot him a look. “You okay there?”
“… yeah. Yeah, I’m fine,” he mumbled, still fighting to clear his mind.
“Don’t go and get claustrophobic on me, stiffbone.” He could hear the lopsided smirk in her words. “That’s the last thing we need right now. … and don’t forget to bring the crate with you when you leave. Lou’s gonna want that back.”
He let out a low chortle, and the awkward moment evaporated. He sensed her glance over her shoulder and then give him a curt nod. He returned the nod, grasped the crate and began to rise from his crouch – only to hesitate and shoot his companion a wry grin.
“Y’know, Jim’ll be thrilled when he hears about all the kobolds I’ll be killin’ here.”
Tuan raised an eyebrow. “‘Jim’?”
“A guy back at th’ pumpkin farm. Said he used t’ collect candles fer William Pestle.”
“… oh.” Tuan snickered under her breath. “I see.”
Eli winked and turned back to his task at hand, hoisting the crate onto his back and pulling Baccus from its holster. The runeblade jittered and sang quietly in his hand, but he didn’t care much about hushing at it as he usually would have. There was going to be quite a bit of cleaning-up to do, after all.
As a species, kobolds weren’t nearly as brazen as gnolls or even quilboar, but these were still frenzied enough to launch themselves at him, yelping obscenities in broken Common. He disposed of them easily, either clubbing them over their misshapen heads with the sword’s pommel or chopping them clean in two like a hot knife through butter. The winding passages of the mine ensured that he only ran into them one at a time, which helped the fact that the crate was ostensibly keeping him one-handed in every fight.
Eventually he made his way to what had to be the bottom-most cavern in the small digout. Quickly checking himself for any bloodstains or other fluids that might drip from him and betray him, he wiped off the runeblade, holstered it and flipped the crate up and around, smoothly slipping it over his sturdy frame and tucking himself together within its confines. It was a rather snug fit, but with an extra kink in his shoulders, he managed to get the crate’s edges all the way to the stone floor. Then he settled in and began to wait.
After a few minutes of tense silence, he heard the distinct click-click-click of footfalls coming from behind him – sharp heels against hard stone. This was not another transient, that much was certain … and the way the steps sounded, it was someone who knew exactly where they were and exactly what they wanted.
There was another sound – a sound that could best be described as a ‘not-sound’ – and he felt the whipcrack of an arcane discharge further inside the cavern. A teleport spell?
There were a few footfalls, heavy but still muted. This other person was barefoot … and massive.
His suspicions were confirmed when one of the ‘persons’ spoke up. “What little humie want? Why you call Glubtok?”
The voice was thunderous and deep, the kind of voice one might expect out of someone with a chest the size of a Thunder Ale barrel. And judging from the crude speech …
“Sad … is this the life you had hoped for, Glubtok? Running two-bit extortion operations out of a cave?”
Eli felt a soft chill run down his spine. The other voice was smooth, sonorous … and decidedly female. What was going on here?
Glubtok obviously took slight to the surreptitious stab. “GLUBTOK CRUSH YOU!” The roar was accompanied by another crackle of arcane energy.
“Oh … will you? Do you dare cross that line and risk your life?”
The venom in the woman’s voice was palpable.
“You may attempt to kill me – and fail – or you may take option two.”
A pregnant beat of silence.
“What option two?”
“You join me, and I shower wealth and power upon you.”
Another beat.
“So Glubtok have two choices. Die, or be rich and powerful? … Glubtok take choice two.”
A silvery laughter rang through the cavern, only just slightly laced with a dark timbre of haughty triumph. Eli had to suppress a shiver. “I thought you’d see it my way.” A few steps, indicating that the woman had turned around. “I will call for you when the dawning is upon us.”
There was another blast of that not-sound, followed by the tell-tale arcane crackle, and then Eli only heard the woman’s footfalls go past his hiding spot and recede into the passageway.
It took him a moment to realize that he had unwittingly been holding his breath. Only the knowledge that he didn’t need to breathe anymore kept him from exhaling explosively and pull in a deep mouthful of air. He held out for another agonising minute, teeth gritted, until he painstakingly began to inch himself out of the crate’s now rather uncomfortable closure. He muttered a few choice invectives to himself – ones he definitely didn’t use often – and rubbed a decidedly sore shoulder with a grimace.
“I sure hope this’ll make ‘er happy, the darn girl,” he sighed. Then it struck him – one of the persons inside the cavern just now had been a woman. Was it possible that …
He carefully went over the exchange he had just overheard inside his head. No … it had to be a different person. He had built up his hearing to considerable levels due to his blindness, and thus was able to recognize the various overtones that clearly separated the woman’s voice from his companion’s. Tuan was a distinct alto, no matter what timbre she happened to be assuming; this woman had had a remarkably well-toned voice, but she was still too close to a medium soprano to be anywhere near Tuan’s pitch.
He shook his head, hoisted the crate onto his back and made his way out again. The corpses of the slain kobolds remained where they had fallen during his trip inside; if there were still kobolds squatting in the mine, they were most likely huddling out of sight and earshot, hoping not to catch the fearsome Death Knight’s attention. They didn’t need to worry – Eli’s mind was elsewhere.
The she-rogue was still exactly where he had left her earlier: crouched in the tall grass, eyeing the surroundings while a throwing knife spun idly between her fingers. She quickly turned her head around when he approached, though not in a startled manner.
“Sure took your sweet time in there,” she mumbled when he squatted down beside her, setting the crate down. “At least you remembered the crate.”
“I did, an’ I sure heard some interesting things,” he replied, rolling his sore shoulder for good measure. “So what didya see?”
She sighed audibly. “… nothing. Not a pipsqueak. Nothing but snakes and mice after you cleaned house on your way in.”
His countenance stiffened slightly. “Then yer gonna be pretty interested in what I’ve got, ‘cause there’s definitely been some weird folks down thar.”
He could feel her stare landing on him.
Meticulously, he described the exchange he had been privy to – the strange woman, the obviously arcane-wielding brute, and the cryptic agreement they had struck.
“… an Ogre Mage? What the fel is an Ogre Mage doing in Westfall?” Tuan finally muttered.
“Tryin’ t’ strike it rich, like everyone else?”
The she-rogue shot the Death Knight a wry, lopsided smile. “Nice one.” Then she turned sober again. “I don’t like this, Eli. There’d be enough trouble already with just one ogre trying to stir things up, but an Ogre Mage …”
“S’it that much of a deal? I wus sure ogres had casters already.”
“Yes, but those are mostly shamans, or a rough equivalent. Sometimes they become warlocks, simply by absorbing enough fel contamination to shift over into demonic allegiances. But an Ogre Mage …” She glanced at him. “Are you sure he teleported in?”
“Yeup.”
She sighed and pulled a hand through her hair. “Definitely an Ogre Mage. And if he could teleport in with that accuracy, he’s no blundering dimwit that just happened to swallow a magic tome with one of his lunches.” She drew a deep breath. “Eli, the thing is … there’s only one affiliation that can reliably produce Ogre Magi that don’t burn themselves to a crisp or worse the first instant their powers manifest.”
He fidgeted. “And that is?”
Her face hardened, and her voice became dark. “The Twilight’s Hammer.”
He immediately felt his muscles tighten. Both he and the she-rogue had gotten a whole new slew of reasons to detest the shadowy death cult lately, the most notable one stemming from a particular calamity nearly six months in the past …
Tuan shook herself out of the sombre thoughts. “Now, that woman you described. … fel, this is where I’d ask you for a visual, but yeah, that’d be pretty pointless.” She rolled her eyes.
He cracked a little smirk.
“You’re absolutely sure she came walking in, and walked out? No teleport?”
“Pos’tive.”
Tuan grumbled to herself under her breath. “Then either this mine has exits I didn’t know about, or she’s really good at teleporting.” The she-rogue’s eyes became distant. “Onyxia was taken out of the picture years ago … a new Black Flight Queen? Someone trying to tread in the Broodmother’s footsteps?”
Eli felt that light chill run down his spine again. He squirmed discreetly, trying to shake the sensation from him. “… naw. Can’t be.”
Tuan bent her head down and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Eli, between you entering and exiting, there hasn’t been a single person going through that mine entrance over there. If it is another Black Dragon putting her claws into Stormwind, it’d account for that, at least. She’d definitely be shrewd enough to avoid my lookout here.”
“An’ if it’s jus’ an ord’nary human that’s still shrewd enough fer that?”
The she-rogue stiffened minutely. Her eyes flickered briefly, and then they hardened again. “… then we just might have something even worse than an Onyxia-wannabe on our hands.” She rose suddenly. “Let’s go. Time to give Lou back his old house, before he thinks we made off with it.”
They stalked back to the small farmstead without further ado. Lou was still outside, apparently chatting up another fellow hustler. Catching sight of the returning ‘scouts’, the other hustler sobered up, nodding discreetly over Lou’s shoulder. Lou promptly spun around.
The pair of adventurers had barely gotten within earshot before Lou clamped one hand over an ear and quickly backed off, barking at the top of his voice while waving frantically with his free arm.
“STOP! STOP! STOP! No closer! Not a word! I don’t wanna hear it! I don’t wanna know and I don’t care! That kind of information is liable to get you killed ‘round these parts!” He suddenly skipped forward, snatching the crate from Eli’s hand. “I’ll be taking that,” he chimed before scooting back to a safe distance once more.
Tuan merely held her ground, palms raised outward and a light, diplomatic smile on her lips. Lou continued to gesture menacingly at the she-rogue and Death Knight, holding up a single finger and glaring back and forth between them. When he seemed sufficiently ensured that neither of them would try to divulge anything awkward, his body language relaxed ever so slightly.
“Okay. Okay. I owed Horatio one, I’ve paid it back. You got your lead, I’m off the hook.” He paused momentarily, his voice dropping back down to its usual volume. “Right. I got one more bit of information for you. One more, and then we’re done. Done! Got it?”
Tuan nodded, still wearing that mild, diplomatic smile. Lou gestured lightly, and the she-rogue stepped closer with metered care.
Lou drew a deep breath and leaned in conspiratorially, his voice dropping to a hoarse whisper. “A couple thugs recently showed up here at the farm, causin’ all kinds o’ trouble. I don’t know where they came from or who they’re working for, but I know they’re bad news. I may have overheard ‘em talkin’ ‘bout subjects that might interest you.” He waggled his eyebrows meaningfully. “You’ll find the thugs back behind the windmill.” He stepped back again, his face splitting in a broad grin that was only slightly unsavoury to witness. “If you get caught or killed, I don’t know you. Never seen ya!” And then he spun on his heel, immediately engrossed in the exchange he had had with his ‘colleague’ mere moments earlier, as if the conversation had never been interrupted.
Tuan and Eli exchanged a single, knowing glance, and slowly made their way off to the side of the farm house, their poses relaxed and unassuming. Tuan’s senses, however, were on hyper alert, while Eli kept disguising the slight tension that had entered into his spine by rolling his shoulder every so often.
A tiny, barely distinguishable shift in the she-rogue’s step signalled that she had picked up on something. Eli stopped, straightening his back in the way a worn-out farmhand might after a hard day’s work in the fields, but his finely honed hearing was piqued to its absolute. Tuan continued forward a few more steps before she, too, came to a plain but acutely attentive rest, and the two companions listened in dead silence to the hushed words coming from behind the abandoned windmill.
“Did you … did you meet her?” “Yep. She’s for real.”
Tuan’s eyes glittered, and she quickly ghosted forward a few steps, stopping again at the corner of the crumbling building.
“She wanted me to tell you lugs that she appreciates the job we did for her on the Furlbrows.” There was a round of low, raucous chuckles.
Eli’s ice-blue eyes flashed suddenly, a dark fury welling up within him. He started forward, ignoring the she-rogue’s sudden, sharp glare.
“Gave me a pile o’ gold to split with y’all.” Quiet whoops, a clinking of coins being shared. Eli was now abreast with Tuan, and she reached out to yank him back.
She was a fraction of a heartbeat too slow.
“See her face? Is it really—”
And then Eli took the last step around the corner, standing to his full, deathbound height. The thugs immediately spun to face him, but if he had counted on them cowering before his unearthly appearance, he was wrong.
“Whoaaa, what do we have here?” the foremost of the thugs said in a lazy drawl, a vicious leer cracking across his face. “Looks like we have ourselves an eavesdropper, boys.”
Eli merely stared back, his unseeing, glowing eyes hardening beneath his hood. Tuan, still concealed behind the corner, mouthed a particularly foul string of invectives as she loosened her blades in their various sheaths.
The other thugs straightened up, one by one, forming a close group behind the leader, staring right back at the ‘intruder’. “Only one thing to do with a lousy, good-for-nothin’ eavesdropper.” The leader shared a single, tell-tale look among his cronies, and then raised an iron-knuckled fist in the air. “DIE!”
The other thugs launched themselves forward with combat knives and blades – and were universally met by Baccus’ singing edge, the hissing runesword slicing through their black leather harnesses like a razor through silk cloth. Within seconds, the leader stood alone.
As the now towering Death Knight strode up to him, the thug began backing off, his initial confidence melting off of him like snow in the summer sun. His face, having already shifted through outrage and disbelief, now carried nothing but naked terror. “Whu-how-what the fel are you??” he stuttered out, quickly yanking a small dagger from his belt.
“Death,” Eli replied matter-of-factly, the ever-present echoing timbre in his voice making the simple statement all the more blood-curdlingly true. He raised his runeblade for the final strike.
“Dammit, Eli, don’t—”
Tuan swung herself around the corner, and the thug caught sight of her. His eyes widened suddenly in an odd recognition, and then his face contorted in a fury beyond words. “You!!”
Without so much as a moment’s warning, he threw his dagger straight at her unguarded face.
Eli reacted out of sheer instinct. His hand shot out, seizing the thrown weapon in mid-flight, and then he pivoted on one foot, bringing Baccus around in a tremendous arc of devastation.
The thug’s head was sent flying, leaving the man’s body to crumple unceremoniously before Eli’s feet.
Tuan had already stopped in her tracks, and now she facepalmed with the outmost frustration. “… for the love of the Light, Eli, I seriously can’t take you along anywhere.”
Eli merely shook the gore off his runeblade, holstering the now disturbingly content weapon onto his back once more. “They’re the ones that killed the Furlbrows,” he replied with a flat, dead voice. “Justice has been served.”
“The only thing you’ve managed to do is remove the evidence, stonehead,” she spat back, striding up to the slaughtered men and quickly rummaging through their pockets for anything worthwhile. She threw the shredded clothing back onto the corpses with a disgusted huff. “Nothing but the gold they just divvied up. Figures,” she snarled, standing up and rounding on the Death Knight. “Eli, listen very carefully. The first and most important thing you need to learn about this kind of business is—”
She was promptly interrupted by two sharp bangs, followed by a woman’s muted scream.
She immediately spun around in the direction of the farmstead. “Shit,” she hissed furiously, taking off before Eli could so much as manage a single word in reply. He followed after her, the swell of combat beginning to ebb from his deadened veins.
He had barely cleared the open field between the windmill and the small house before Tuan’s outstretched arm halted any further advance.
He didn’t need to ask her what had happened. The stench of the deed lay thick in the air, making Baccus jitter excitedly in its holster.
“… as I was about to say …” the she-rogue sighed exhaustedly. “… dead men tell no tales.”
In front of them, the various transients occupying the farmhouse had all frozen in a rainbow hue of paralyzing fear. And in their midst …
“Fel,” Eli muttered under his breath.
Horatio had already come sprinting across the fields, closely followed by his assistants. They immediately rounded up the shivering citizens, while Horatio knelt solemnly by the corpse on the ground.
“You were standing right here! What the fel did you see? Speak up!” one of the assistants barked at a trembling woman.
“I … I didn’t see nothin’!” she squeaked back. “He … he died of natural causes.”
“Natural causes? Two bullets in the chest and his shoes are on his head! What kind of natural death would that be?”
Horatio turned Lou’s corpse over. The lieutenant didn’t look up, but it was obvious that he was talking to the morose pair of adventurers stood nearby. “Doesn’t look good, rookies. This … was an execution.” He shook his head slowly, turning Lou’s frozen face back down into the dirt. “Whoever did this is sending a message … a message for anyone that would dare snitch on these criminals.”
Eli flexed his hands, opening and closing them helplessly as the bitter tang of defeat began trickling into his mouth. Tuan remained quiet, but she kept her eyes on the Death Knight, a mixture of disappointment and resignation in her gaze.
With the outmost care, Horatio reached into his jacket, once more producing the by now ubiquitous shades. “It would appear that poor Lou really did put his foot …” The lieutenant raised the shades to his face, placing them onto his nose with immaculate precision. “… in his mouth.”
Eli clenched his fists hard enough to make the bones grind against each other, and Tuan let her head drop, heaving a defeated sigh.
Horatio stood smoothly, adjusting his jacket. “We’re dealing with an organization here, rookies. You don’t just off the richest bum in Westfall in broad daylight and leave no witnesses. Someone with a lot of power is behind these murders.” He turned his head ever so slightly in the two companions’ direction. “What have you learned so far?”
In as few words as possible, Tuan relayed what she and Eli had discovered since the evidence roundup at the Jansen stead: the meeting in the mine, and, most importantly, the thugs.
Horatio sighed and pulled off his shades, tucking them back inside his jacket. “Alright then. We need to follow the clues.” He raised his head, squinting into the almost surreal blue sky above them.
“Over at the Jansen’s, you found a water-soaked letter and some scraps of red cloth. Here at the Furlbrow’s, you overheard a conversation between an unidentifiable figure and an ogre mage. You also got a confession … of sorts … from a bunch of thugs – whom you then killed.” He spun on his heel and riveted his gaze onto the she-rogue and Death Knight, eyes suddenly as hard as steel. “Something isn’t adding up.”
Tuan merely met his stare head-on.
He yanked his head around – obviously his custom for giving directions, as it were. “There’s an old couple, southeast of here, at the Saldean’s Farm. Head over there and speak with Farmer Saldean. Find out what he knows.”
The she-rogue raised both her eyebrows at this. “Saldeans? They’re still around?”
Horatio didn’t even twitch his mouth. “Unbelievably enough, yes.” He suddenly raised a finger. “One more thing.” Reaching into his jacket, he produced a pair of neatly folded parchments that he handed to her. “If you ever find yourself headed to Sentinel Hill proper … and I know you will, one way or another … you’ll need these.” She took the papers, opened them and perused them quickly with an eyebrow arched, before tucking them into her pockets. Horatio gave her one last cursory glance, and then he put his shades back on, turning away. “Now step to it.”
Tuan nodded curtly, and then she grabbed on to Eli’s shoulder armour and dragged him aside.
Eli’s composure had deflated quite thoroughly. “… sorry ‘bout that,” he mumbled.
Tuan sighed and shook her head. “What’s done’s done. Time to save some face before everything goes down the drain.” She gave him a – somewhat hard – pat on the shoulder and turned to her mare. “We’ve got a new destination. Let’s go.”
((co-written by Tuan Taureo and TheKittyLizard))
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