Home For the Holidays

"You'll be alright Mr. Lorentino?" I was letting my staff take the holidays off (holidays, plural, starting around the end of the year there are six! Of them, from feasting, to celebrating the new year, to mourning the dead who didn't make the new year, I'd go over the holidays, but honestly who cares?) Before you think this is an overly nice gesture its because no one generally buys either guns or clothes despite gift giving being a big thing, so it was a cost saving measure made to look like a nice one.

"I'll be fine." I would be fine, during the holidays I just mainly kept the shop open for the person who ripped a pair of trousers right before some big meal and gouge the living gods out of them (see I don't entirely hate the holidays).

"Don't you have any family?" Tabitha and I always tend to have this conversation every year, its like a dance where both partners know all the moves.

"Nope they all died long ago, go Tabitha you'll miss your train." She gave me a small peck on the cheek as was our custom and picked up her belongings and made her way to the door.

"Just don't burn the shop down ok!" And with that she was off.  The burn the shop down thing was a one time attempt to try and put fire in a bottle.  I still maintain it would have worked! Just unfortunately as soon as I applied the fire to the flammable liquid, it exploded. And here I thought magic would help, alas.

The day preceeded like I thought it would, whole lot of nothing.  No customers, no complaints, not even a window shopper.  I spent the day reading a couple books I'd picked up from a passing merchant who claimed to be selling ancient power (I'm a sucker for a good story as I'm sure anyone reading this can tell) and drinking wine (beer is good for bullshitting, but wine will always be the superior reading drink).  So needless to say I was kind of wobbly in the late afternoon as the normal dark and cold settled in all over the city.  I was about to turn my placard from open to closed when a hooded man burst in.

"Sorry I'm closing up for the night, you'll have to come back tomorrow." He looked ragged, the traveling robes and hood he was wearing were frayed.

"Trezlan you have to help me." To my shock it was Morley, I mean I knew in a way he'd be back, but I hadn't anticpated he'd be back looking like he was fighting off the worlds worst flu. I kept my distance, when dealing with a wounded necromancer this is a wise thing, because as I've written before, you can be a solution of sorts for whatever ails them.

"What is wrong with you? You look paler and deader than usual." Its hard to look at someone who normally looks like a corpse and see something wrong, but Morley was so pale he was almost see through. Morley attempted to speak, but instead collapsed his frail frame not able to keep up with whatever had brought him to my shop.  I won't lie I poked him with my sword to make sure it wasn't a trick (didn't have a stick available, and if it was a trick well I wanted a better weapon than a damn stick). But he was out cold, in more ways than one. His body felt like ice as I carried him to my room at the back of the shop and shackled him in bed (look I was giving up my bed, I sure as all get out was not going to let him have magical abilities while I looked after him, he was dangerous as all necromancers are). Taking a place at my desk near the bed I watched over him, something was direly wrong with Morley, and I was pretty sure it wasn't just lacking holiday cheer. And thats how it went that night, Morley sleeping/dying, and me watching over him fearful of falling asleep and waking in the afterlife.

Don't you just love when family visits for the holidays?

Now Back to Our Normal Narcissicm

"Bring it?"

"And then I killed all of them."

"Bring it really? No one is going to believe that." And back to the future past (future of the story I was telling, my past as I'm writing, do keep up gentle reader).

"It's what I said, and who cares about believeability? Isn't that the whole thing with heroic stories that they defy imagination?" Marian had a lot of ale flowing through her at this point, I'm cleaning up how she spoke because it was a lovely combination of grunts and slurs.

"I don't really think its that heroic that you were blackmailed into murdering a murderer so that someone else who was probably equally as bad could take his place." I mean in that definition of heroism I'm the most heroic person who ever heroed and even I don't believe that.

"Look are you going to write that down or not?"

"Fine,'bring it' it is, no matter how ridiculous the idea is, so is that all you killed all the guys guards went back and got a job well done?"

"Pretty much, eventually I found my way south to Ronerawth and in kind of an interesting story I was able to get my families name cleared let me tell you about that..." It was not an interesting story, it was fairly boring.  Her family was accused of treason based on a clerical error, A CLERICAL ERROR! Someone wrote the wrong name down in a book of people who had donated to a failed coup and Marian discovered the actual traitor, this story took three hours to tell and had a lot of internal boring to it, seriously I wrote down for the next section back then (Marian can not tell a story, her parents died by clerical error).  The most hilarious thing was seeing the pardon letter by an undersecretary at the time apologizing for the mistake and any hardship it may have caused, sadly I didn't get the letter.

After Marian finished her second story she paid the tab and left me to "finish writing".  Which as I admitted to, I hadn't done very well, sadly I can't even blame it on liquor as I wasn't really drinking despite Marian's incentive of covering my tab, mainly because I kind of took writing thing seriously, even though I clearly didn't.  Marian would leave town a day later with not even a good bye.  She went off to do what mercenaries do and eventually was killed in the Red Hand lands, I heard it was for killing that councilman all those years previous despite being told to do so.  Such is the nature of politics and why I try and stay far away from them.  Tell you good job out of one side of their face, set you up to be murdered out the other.

The Big Chill

*Smash* Ice broke way under Marian's mace (note to self Marian's Mace, good name for a tavern potentially catering to women). The frozen body trapped within fell to the flood with a wet thud. Marian continued along the wall freeing the dead women from their frozen display cases, it had the desired effect the door behind her blew open with a shatter of wood and ice.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" The councilman roared his voice almost too loud to understand clearly. Marian was waiting by the door when it blew open, her mace swing connected what she thought would be his head, but she misjudged his height and hit him in the shoulder. The councilman collapsed all the same (you try and get hit in the shoulder with a big mace and not fall over, well actually don't, because that could kill you), Marian tried to follow up his collapse with a shotgun blast, but the councilman put up a wall of ice between her and him and the shot impacted on it, but did not break it.  She was about to swing her mace again when an ice spear impaled her right shoulder and pinned her to a wall. The councilman got to his feet, his right arm hung useless at his side.

"You will be the start of my new collection!" His hand had formed into some kind of ice blade.  Marian acted fast first breaking the end of the spear off, and then pulling with all her strength to get it out of herself. The weapon in hand she impaled it into the councilmans eye. The iceblade instantly melted, as did the remaining ice in the room (I've heard of this phenomenon, something about magical things not lasting past the creators life, as a fire user its not something I run into, haven't set any ever burning flames, well that I'm aware of). Marian unloaded another two barrels of shotgun shells into him, just to make sure. She emerged from his viewing room with her right arm in pain, about ten shells of ammunition left, and bleeding from where the ice spear had impaled her.  Greeting her was the rest of Councilmans guard, about ten men.  All ready to kill her.

Marian grinned reloaded the shotgun and said "Bring it!"

On Flies And Parlors

"So they finally sent someone to try and kill me, and a woman even, someone has a sense of humor." The voice echoed in the building, it didn't seem to be coming from one place specifically but all places. Marian held the shotgun in front of her trying to check for the source of the noise.

"You've gone too far councilman, they can't hide your problems any longer." It was a lie Marian had no idea if he went too far, or not far enough, all she knew was she had been told to kill him or she'd die, not much of an option.

"Please they wouldn't tell you why you need to kill me, I'm sure they even threatened to kill you should you not try.  You are just their errand girl, and not the first, you'll mark their fifth failed attempt at killing me." Marian shot, a darkened cabinet exploded in wood and glass from the impact, the councilman was not inside. She felt a chill run down her back that solified into a block of ice.  It was so cold it burned, from the house laughter erupted. Marian dropped to her back and the ice shattered (see there's where fire is a boon and ice is just something for people who got the raw deal, personal opinion of course), she fired behind her because she doesn't understand how magic works (I did not say this opinion to her while she related this story to me), and of course just destroyed more furniture bringing more laughter. Marian realized she had to control the enviroment, so instead of remaining in the big open room, she rushed to a side room.

She ran in and slammed the door behind her, the room was lit by oil lamps like most places were, though it was a bit too bright compared to other rooms she'd been in, and Marian could immediately see why.  Incased in unnatural ice around the room were the heads and naked bodies of several women of various ages. It was so grotesque a scene Marian had to fight back a feeling of vomit. Whatever else was going on with this guy this was enough for Marian to want to crush the life out of him and watch him die.  And she had a perfect plan to do it seeing his frozen trophies...

All Manor of Problems

Marian is not a subtle woman.  I mean she's big for a woman, she swing a huge mace, carries a large shotgun, and has a presence you really can't ignore (as well as a horrible laugh, seriously this laugh its the worst thing). So the thought of her sneaking up on a manor as she described it to me seemed alien.  It would be like me saying I negoatiated something artfully, its hard to buy. Still since I did not witness this and I'm only reporting it second hand I have to go with her description. The Manor was thankfully not near any city enough to worry about random people walking by, which also provided a complication because it meant Marian couldn't rely on a crowd to mask her approach. Though she had a plan, a plan that even I kind of balked at.

"Halt!" The guard at the front was wearing one of those silly suit/uniform things that really rich people make their bodyguards wear.  I have no idea why really, it always looks ridiculous. This particular set also was dressed in bright yellow, or so Marian claims, she could just have been screwing with me.

"I have a letter from the Council, special delivery." Yes her plan was dressed as a mercenary with a large mace and shotgun to pretend to be some kind of special courier. When she relayed this story she was about half past drunk, so take this with the usual amount of belief you trust in me. The guard turned to look back for some kind of supervisor and that was the last thing he ever did.  Marian had hopped off her horse and using her warhammer as a bit of a crank snapped his neck in one swift motion. Unfortunately she did it in the middle of a lamp light and the guards were in position to cover each other with sightlines.  A shout from in front of her was answered with two roars of the shotgun (Marian was again not a subtle lady). Which only drew the rest of the guards to her position.  She quickly reloaded the gun and caught the guard running from her left with another double barrel blast.  The guard to her right found out that while not intended to be swung one handed Marian can still pull off the maneuver and splattered his skull all over the opening yard area.

With the jig effectively up she just decided to crash through the patio doors and bring the councilman down to just end the whole thing early.  Unfortunately as soon as she crashed through the doors she tripped a magical barrier (pro tip about antimagical trinkets, they are completely useless) and trapped herself inside. It wasn't exactly a huge difference considering she was there to kill the councilman either way, but it did make escaping/murdering everyone a bit harder.

"Welcome to my parlor fly." The voice boomed all around her and Marian knew just like everything else in life, things went from bad to worse.

To Kill A Councilman

"Kill everyone there." The judge was going over the plan for murdering the Councilman.  It wasn't so much of a plan as a directive.  He had the layout of the Councilman's manor, with possible guard patrol's marked in red, and best ways to enter circled (the patio had a double glass door entry that would be easy to smash through and see anyone on the other side). Also next to the plans was a double barrel shotgun with a belt of shells.

"You mean like anyone who fights back?" Marian had her mace returned to her, and she'd been gifted a couple supposedly antimagical artifacts to help out against any traps or runes he may have had inscribed in places.

"No I mean everyone in the manor, leave no survivors, burn the whole thing to the ground. We need to control the narrative, anyone who sees what really happened has to die.  I recommend doing this at night because that way there will be less people there, but its up to you." The judge was clam as he could be while pronouncing everyone to die in the building.  Marian caught the implication about night time, during the day there would be more servants and therefore more people she might have a problem killing.  She didn't ask about any family, already assuming she wasn't going to get out of this without being a child killer.

"Anything I should know about the councilman? What kind of magic does he use?"

"Ice, been doing it for years, though he's gotten up there in age and so he will be weakened in theory."

"In theory."

"No one said this would be easy Marian, if it was I'd have just paid some criminal on the street to stick a knife in his ribs, well I should say that would have been successful."

"Anything else?"

"Clock is ticking, you have a week to reach the manor and deal with him.  If you fail or run away I'll find you and believe me death will be the least of your worries." Again the chill, Marian had heard what the Red Hand can do to you should you upset them enough and it was enough for her to realize failing to kill the councilman and dying to his guards, was better than messing with this judge. Marian gathered the shotgun and the plans and made her way downstairs to the new horse they'd arranged for her.  She noticed no other guards were in the building despite several being there earlier.  All the more reason to fear the Judge, he was probably doing this outside of his own governments authority, and her failure would be all the more painful on either side.

It was night out when she set out for the Councilman's manor and there was a cold chill in the summer air. Marian feared it was a sign of things to come and as she tells me the story, she was absolutely right.

Red Handed Diplomacy

"Marian Ribiachi." The judge was seated at his desk, Marian was still in her armored tunic but her weapon was placed on the desk in front of the judge.  The room was fairly lavish, red tapestries with the Red Hands grasping fist proudly displayed along all the walls, the desk itself was a fancy wooden thing that appeared hand crafted with gold inlays. The chair he was seated at was high backed and matched the desk. Marians chair was a bit more simple, just wood with small padding.

"Never heard of her." It had been two years since Marian fled, but she had learned many times annoucing her full name was a bad idea.  Its not like anyone in the Red Hand territory would really care her father had been executed in Ronerawth for being a traitor, but it was better safe than sorry when dealing with any kind of authority.

"Oh please Marian, there is no need to hide your identity we are all friends here." He had stood up and moved to the edge of his desk.  Marian was seated but not restrained, but she could sense the power the Judge wielded was not one of martial strength.  She hadn't dealt with a judge before, but had heard of their abilities and didn't want to tempt ones wrath.

"Friends who murdered a fellow mercenary, took my job, and have me locked up here?"

"You aren't really locked up are you? No bars on your door, shackles on your wrist? No you are merely being kept, its a shame you got caught up in a kidnapping, but we don't fault you.  In fact we want to," He paused to think over his next choice of words, "Reward you."

"I'm listening." Marian was an opportunist, even back then, her loyalty has always been as far as her coin purse.  I can respect that.

"We have a situtation brewing with a councilman, he's becoming a little unhinged, his obsession with his niece kind of prompted this little show in the first place."

"And so you want me to talk to him?"

"I want you to kill him, before you react all indiginantly know that I have two seperate places I could send you, either Ronerawth to face the music for your father being a traitor, or our own prison apparently a couple years back a mysterious brown skinned woman murdered a couple guards and escaped with a known spy, now the survivors didn't get her name but I'm sure they could be coaxed into indentifying her if need be."

"Not exactly much of a reward killing a man." Marian was between a rock and a hard place, but she still wanted to work a deal.

"The reward comes after, but there's no point in discussing it with your task at hand.  You know of course I can't directly help you."

"Of course or you'd be open for your own government coming after you for murdering one of your own."

"Exactly, though after its done things will change, for country, for you personally, and for me, it all works out, once he's dead.  So we have a deal?" He extended his hand, Marian had a sense of hesitation like she was making a deal that would not be the easiest to back out of.

"We have a deal." She shook his hand and felt a shiver run down her back. It wasn't exactly making a deal with a dark creature, but it certainly felt like one according to Marian.  She still got shivers about that meeting even when talking to me about it.  Which sounds about right for dealing with anyone in the upper parts of the Red Hand government.