There Were Peace Talks?

Markus took another long drag from his cigar before setting it aside in his ashtray. Lungs still full of smoke, he took as deep a breath as he could through his nose and leaned forward until his forehead rested on his entwined fingers. Finally, after several silent seconds ticked past us, the young looking gang boss broke the increasingly uneasy quiet in his dark office with a slow sigh.

He met my gaze, looking straight past the gently swaying head I still held out over his desk (I had needed to hop up on one of the -notably less fancy and comfortable than his own- chairs Markus had conveniently placed in front of his desk to achieve that) to lock eyes with me. His expression was even, giving no real hint as to what thoughts flowed behind his steely eyes. "Normally, I'd be extremely pleased to have the severed head of a notable figure in another gang's hierarchy laid before me; though, I recommend a silver platter next time, it makes less of a mess and adds a ceremonial air to an otherwise mundane murder."

I blinked slowly, but he continued before I could even begin formulating a response, “You see,” He drummed the fingers of his left hand on the edge of his desk, reaching for a bottle of whiskey under said desk with the other, “The South Side Serpents have been our nominal allies for several years now, though our relationship has not always been smooth flowing.” In a mildly impressive display of dexterity, he managed to place two dark red tumblers and a full bottle on the table with one hand; though, my thoughts were rather too focused on whether or not I was about to be handed over as a peacekeeping gift or just shot where I stood to care for the blonde man's booze handling skills.

Even as I ran through potential plans to get out of this one alive (and preferably, though not essentially, intact), I kept a calm, even expression on my face and simply watched Markus flip the gaudy crystal stopper off his bottle with his thumb. He took his time, slowly filling both glasses to the point the amber fluid bulged slightly higher than the rims without actually spilling over. Despite how full each glass was he slid one over to me, somehow not spilling a drop, before taking a sip from his own tumbler.

He hummed slightly at the taste (or perhaps the effect) of the drink, "In recent months we’ve been working closer with them, to the point where we had had a few talks of a more formalized alliance…” He trailed off, locking eyes with me as he took another long drag from his cigar. Lungs still full of smoke, he slowly drained his entire cup in one go before breathing twin clouds of smoke through his nose as he poured himself another drink. Finally, he broke eye contact as he leaned back in his plush chair, “However, your story lines up with Jetald’s observations; the Serpents struck first.”

I noted down the fact I had apparently failed to notice a spy watching me despite my best efforts, engraving that feeling of icy dread into my soul one chilling thought at a time. I wasn't exactly surprised, even if I was still decidedly unsettled; the idea that a professional spy or scout would have the Skills and experience to escape my detection was not outside my expectations. In a world like this, where magical means of hiding and stealing secrets undoubtedly existed, I could never assume total privacy even in my thoughts.

That wouldn't stop me from doing everything I could to mitigate such risks, however; the peak of perfection may be unreachable, but the slope of improvement still marches on forever beneath it.

Markus tilted his head back, letting it rest on the back of his chair in a way that I felt exposed his throat far too much to be comfortable. Whether the gesture was purposeful bait or merely incidental was irrelevant, I was not foolish enough to think him as vulnerable as he appeared. He hummed quietly for a moment, rolling his cigar between his teeth as he stared at the ceiling for a moment. "I can't bring myself to believe a lieutenant of a peer could be so unobservant and down right stupid as to genuinely fall for what sounds like a half-assed frame job."

He left that statement hanging for a moment, closing his eyes and somehow causing his cigar to rapidly burn to ash in his mouth. I managed to keep from visibly reacting as he let the ashes fall into his mouth and began swirling them around, "I’d say it’s more likely they set up that scene themselves with the intent of wiping you all out and claiming we initiated the fight with no witnesses to counter.” He frowned, swallowing the ash in his mouth and bringing his gaze back down to the head still swinging from my fingers, “The only problem with that, is Merthoux. I can see that maniac going rogue for a laugh, but to actively work with a hated enemy, even to fuck us over?”

A low grunt rang out from the shadows behind Markus, wine red eyes opening in a dark corner. “He hates the Serpents way more than he hates us.” I couldn’t keep my eyes from widening minutely as the ancient vampire stepped out of the shadows I was absolutely certain were devoid of anything but a lone spider not ten seconds before. To my senses, even my Paranoia, he had simply faded into existence from the shadows right as his eyes crawled open; I couldn’t tell if he had teleported into the room, or been here the whole time without me noticing.

I would have to plan for both, though I was leaning towards him using his ability to go unnoticed to cover his teleporting in. It’s plausible he can travel through shadows explicitly, but I couldn’t rule out him showing up from the darkness as dramatic flair or deliberate obfuscation. Frankly, I suspected it was both, knowing Rokharth. Regardless, my already high threat rating for the ancient monster rose once again as theorized potential abilities were confirmed.

Markus seemed unphased by Rokharth’s sudden appearance, his eyes simply focused on the softly dripping head dangling in my hand. I watched his gaze skim across the vacant face, focusing on the empty eye sockets still filled with squirming, happily feasting maggots, “Was he crying before you dealt the death blow or after?” I could see his eyes tracing the tear tracks down the once proud gangster’s face, wet trails being retread by thick streams of gooey, drying blood leaking from his eyes.

I nodded slowly in thought, the motion traveling down my arm and causing the gently swaying head to turn enough to face me, “He was crying before I even reached him. If I had to guess, I’d say he was crying before he even attacked.” I could see through his limply hanging jaw that he no longer had a tongue, my maggots having eaten the soft organ quickly and moved on to tougher flesh by now; given the uneven angle of the lower jaw, it seemed they were making good progress on his muscles and tendons. Seeing how fast they could take apart a body really put into perspective how much flesh the ones still wiggling around my organs took from me; and how little they targeted those same organs, given I had never seen them so much as nibbling on them.

Rokharth hummed, drawing my attention back to the moment and away from uncomfortable questions I couldn't answer. “Could be many reasons for that; anything from an unrelated prior event, to being forced to attack against his will by whatever means, to any number of personal problems. It’s certainly suspicious, but tears alone tell us nothing conclusive.” He reached forward, giving the head a flick on the nose and grinning as it spun around and around, blood-matted hair twisting and cracking in my grip. “Orchibalt was never a particularly emotionally stable man, though I can’t recall him ever breaking down in tears before a fight like this previously.”

Markus retrieved another cigar, lighting it with a snap of his fingers and taking a deep drag as he idly watched the now named decollated skull spin back and forth. “Regardless of the whys, Merthoux and Orchibalt -each a lieutenant of a different gang- have now attacked our territory and members. Worst case scenario we're looking at a war on at least two fronts. Best case, those two both did this independently for whatever reason and we've got half the problem solved." He sighed out a cloud of smoke, setting his cigar to smoulder in his ashtray while he took a sip from his tumbler. "Obviously, we have to assume it's the former."

No one in the room questioned that decision; Markus had made it, Rokharth and I agreed with it, and Orchibalt was too busy being eaten by maggots to have an opinion. While I’m sure Markus would very much rather have a couple rogue lieutenants trying to cause trouble than deal with a full fledged gang war, the potential consequences if he doesn’t have the gang set to a war footing and these turn out not to be isolated incidents could be catastrophic.

Markus sighed, picking his cigar back up and flicking it in my direction before taking another drag, "Alright, you get outta here; go take a rest, train, do whatever." He gestures with the burning tip of his tiny scepter at Rokharth, "You go get the other lieutenants, we've got a lot to talk about." I nodded sharply, hopping down from my chair and heading towards the door. I knew this was coming, something this important needed the input of the gang's leadership; as much as it galled me to have to admit it, I simply didn't have the rank to be in that room making decisions. I had barely taken two steps before Markus’ voice crawled over my shoulder, “Oh, and leave that head here; we’ll get it prepared and make a proper trophy out of it, don’t you worry.”

I paused for only a moment before turning and tossing the head to Rokharth’s waiting hands and heading out the door; I had no particular use for a rotting head, nor did I care if the maggots within infected someone else. Perhaps trying to keep people from potentially studying my maggots would have been a plausible reason to keep the head, but trying to keep the particular species of fly secret felt like a pointless affair; no matter how much effort I put in to keeping it secret, all it would take is some hobbyist entomologist (or anyone with skills to analyze creatures, like Observe for instance) to glance at the buzzing bastards and the secret is out.

I also just wasn’t particularly interested in taking trophies, generally; I didn’t much care what they did with the skull, they could smash it up and burn it for all I cared. Before I could turn back around and leave, Markus clicked his tongue and let out an exaggerated gasp, “Ahhhh, I nearly forgot!” He didn’t explicitly tell me to stop, but I recognized the tone and tactic on display here and paused mid turn, looking across my shoulder at him even as I tracked his movements with my Paranoia.

With an only slightly chagrined smile (that I didn’t buy for a second), he reached into a drawer on his desk and rummaged around for a moment before withdrawing a tangle of orange cloth. Despite my Paranoia, it was only after the blond gang boss tossed the bundle in my direction and it began to unravel in the air did I recognize what it actually was; an orange bandana, larger than the average back home but still recognizable. “You proved yourself today, even if things got a little more hectic than expected; it’s time you wore our colours properly.”

After a quick Observe told me nothing of significance, I snatched the cloth out of the air with only slight hesitance, feeling the same silken softness around my fingers as I had with the cloak that even now hung around my shoulders. The orange rag had an abstract fire pattern running along it, dancing between black spikes arranged in geometric patterns; each spike was decorated with a burning grey skeleton wrapped around them, their limbs arrayed in various painful looking angles. I couldn’t deny the piece of fabric was beautiful, even if my mind immediately jumped to what the cloth represented and why it was being presented to me. Its quality and the fact it was given to me personally by Markus was undoubtedly a way to make me feel both grateful and special, a common tactic amongst more successful gangs to prey on the naive and poor.

Regardless of my less than charitable thoughts on the purpose of the gang lord’s “gift,” I clenched my hand around the bandana in apparent reverence, locking eyes with Markus and nodding so deeply it was almost a full blown bow. With fingers that moved with real caution and false awe (just because it doesn’t look like a bomb doesn’t mean it isn’t, even if Observe picked up nothing), I wrapped the bandana around my neck, partially tucked into my cloak like a necktie. The moment I tied the cloth in place, a notification dinged in my mind and I barely kept from flinching.

Title Gained: Burnpike Lords Kutthroat

Markus grinned heartily, raising his glass to me in a silent toast before gesturing towards the door with that same glass, “Alright Bruce, go get some rest now.” I nodded once again, struggling intensely not to visibly rush out of the room as I finally turned and walked out uninterrupted.

The door closed behind me and I held in a sigh, knowing damn well a flimsy wooden door would not be enough to keep such a gesture from Rokharth’s ears. Regardless, with my first mission a tentative success, my mind buzzed with ideas and necessities; I wanted to train, to spend my remaining points, to eat until I puked.

But most of all, I wanted to sleep.

Brushing closer to death than I would ever like several times in rapid succession, combined with a torso that was at least eighty percent numbed bruises left me rather tired. Despite the whispers of newfound and well known inadequacies swirling in my mind, I decided to simply head to my quarters, strip out of my clothes, and take a quick shower. Finding out that this building had not just plumbing but heated water was a miracle; I had dreaded the low hygiene standards of the average medieval era city quite a bit, but at the very least this old hospital had a touch of home’s warmth within.

I made a mental note to investigate the boiler room (or whatever equivalent this place had) to see if magic was involved; I may not have dedicated myself to long mystical study just yet, but I couldn't deny a fascination with the concept of functional magic. The thought of bending the world to my will through mystical knowledge was certainly appealing, wielding phenomenal cosmic power was the sort of thing every daydreamer had fantasized about once or twice. Unfortunately, dreams of future magic couldn't pull my ever sinking thoughts away from the bleak reality that future plans rely on the ability to survive the present; something I had come very close to failing at far too often recently.

My thoughts swirled as I sat under the utilitarian faucet, water hot enough to turn my skin faintly red even through the energy retardant oil coating it flowing through my dense fur as my latest brush with death whirled through my mind. I thought of mistakes I’d made, mistakes the enemy made, tactics that had worked on both sides; most of all, though, my thoughts wound around and around the moments I almost died. The vision of my head exploding, every arrow that whistled through my fur, and the fist that nearly turned my organs to paste. I wasn’t fast enough, I wasn’t strong enough, I wasn’t sneaky enough, I wasn’t, I wasn’t I wasn’tIwasn’tIwasn'twasn'twasn't…

I was alive. Everything else was a problem to be solved, nothing more. I killed the water, toweled off, and threw myself into bed. My dreams danced like smoke, each wrought in crimson patterns of fire and blood.

Markus frowned, continuing to stare at the door for a few moments before sighing, “Was this us? This doesn’t fit any of our plans, so it better not have been us.”

Rokharth grunted, “No, I checked our guys thoroughly; whoever caused this clusterfuck, it wasn’t one of ours going rogue.” A few jagged chuckles slid between the old monster’s long teeth, “Besides, our guys would have done a way better job than this; from both reports we’ve got, none of this shit meets my standards.”

Markus nodded, taking several quick and small hits off his cigar before slowly releasing twin clouds of smoke through his nostrils, “I thought as much.” Eyes closed, the young looking criminal took a sip from his glass, “Do you think this will hurt our existing plans overly much? I’m sure we can take this new factor into account.”

The ancient vampire hummed, the shadows around him rippling and curling like smoke in the breeze disturbed by the sound. After a short moment, the monstrous creature of darkness nodded, “Our agents will need a little expedited extra training, but we should be able to keep things relatively on schedule so long as we can get a handle on what’s going on and adjust accordingly.”

A half-relieved chuckle escaped Markus' lips before he managed to choke it down, "Good, good, the first hit should be just fine for next week then." He waved his cigar in the air, steel sharp eyes watching the thin trail of smoke left behind. “We’ll have to shift the target though, the initial plan relied on the Serpents being non-hostile at the very least far too much to carry on as is.”

Rokharth grunted in thought, long nails tapping against weathered wooden walls. "We should hit the Eighth Street Icemen first, then. Snorky does a lot of his out of sector smuggling through those idiots; if we cut that vein we can bleed the fat bastard a little paler, maybe take some of the strength from his arms.”

A quiet hum slithered through Markus' teeth, "I never much liked those hollering morons; they're rabid animals more than gangsters, truly. We'd be doing the city a favour, moving up their execution." Grinning into his cup, Markus jabbed his cigar at the door, “Just make sure the rat's ready to play his role; even if we have to delay his proper debut a bit, we need a deniable hitter before we move on the Disciples."

Sharp teeth glinted in the dark as a smile wider than could ever be contained by a human face spread across the lifedrinker's jaw, "Oh, he'll be ready, don't you worry." Echoing, sharp edged laughter filled the smoky office as the gang boss took a sip from the untouched glass on the other side of his desk, shaking his head slightly in amusement.