OOM: Vivec, 24 Last Seed, 3E 427

[moonandstar]

They had, of course, been glad to hear about how he'd handled Tongue-Toad. His fellow guildmates had sent word of his accomplishment ahead of the storm. Now, as luck would have it, they had a new assignment for him - this one a bounty put up by the Ordinators for a Khajiit outlaw who was "somewhere here in Vivec - St. Olms, I think."

Naturally, Garyn sets out for the first location Lorbulg had mentioned - the head office of the Ordinators. This, a passing guard had curtly told him, was in the Hall of Justice at the High Fane - the two slim spires at the end of the central canal, beneath the giant floating rock they called the Ministry of Truth.

The mer to talk to is a severe-looking fellow by the name of Elam Andas. Garyn judges him as reasonable, but about as cheerful as Ald'ruhn is wet. Turns out even the lead of St. Olms is more than the Ordinators know. Curious, that.

In any case, their efforts were now divided with the rash of mysterious killings that had been sweeping through the city. Yesterday two guards had stumbled upon the killer in the act and had their throats slit before they could draw their weapons. Any information he could provide about that would be rather more helpful.

This, of course, is more than Garyn knows. Andas nods, and gives Garyn his leave.

"An outlander like you ought to be careful," he says. "The killer seems to have it out for foreigners."

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Garyn isn't usually surprised when speaking Ta'agra pays off, but he wasn't expecting it to pay off in St. Olms Canton in Vivec City. A few words with some Khajiit by the canalworks narrowed down his search considerably. The crook was hiding in comfort - an apartment built into the canton itself, rather than the stilted shacks that lined most of the canals.

A quiet knock on the door. Then a louder one. Then, in flawless Senchal Ta'agra, Garyn speaks.

"Dro'Sakhar! We have to move!"

The door cracks open. It's all he needs.

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Garyn wipes his sword as the Ordinator inspects the corpse. What little conversation the bandit had made before he attacked had confirmed that this was the Khajiit Garyn was looking for, as did his personal effects.

He'd searched a little more thoroughly than the Ordinator had. But he could find nothing tying him to the guild, or to any organization of any kind. As far as he can tell, this is a legitimate bounty on an independent outlaw.

"I'll inform the Order of the Watch," the Ordinator says. "They will send the bounty along to your guild. Collect your reward from your guildmaster."

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He'd had to wait a couple days for more work. Lorbumol hadn't been expecting him to return so quickly. He seemed almost as annoyed as he was pleased.

Garyn almost wishes he were still waiting. Now he's at the Rat in the Pot in Ald'ruhn again, this time on a debt collection job. He's always hated shakedowns. The marks either don't want to be found or have some pathetic story or another. Sometimes both. And often times - far more often than he'd like - the sad story turns out to be true.

This one's name is Lirielle Stoine. She's easy enough to find - a skinny Breton with short, red hair, keeping to herself at a corner stool. She doesn't deny it either.

"My brother Ruran is dead," she says quietly, her eyes not leaving Garyn's. "I'm sure of it. The Camonna Tong said that he owed them money, which I don't dispute."

She breathes deeply and her eyes narrow. "But now they say that I owe my brothers debts. I don't have 2000 drakes. I've never had that much money. I can't well pay what I don't have, can I?"

Garyn grimaces. "No, I expect not. But I can't go back to the guild empty-handed either. Your brother -"

"Is dead. A dead fool who has already paid for his foolishness. He knew he was in debt, and he went off to some place called Mallapi northeast of Gnaar Mok to 'seek his fortune,' or so he said. I haven't heard from him since, but the Tong know what happened to him. And they don't need to say it."

Garyn pauses. The gears begin to turn in his head.

"...I don't suppose you'd know where I might find this 'Mallapi'?"

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It's two days' and one night's journey through the swamp to the rough collection of boards and fisherman's shanties that the locals call Gnaar Mok. Lucky for him they seem to understand his discreet line of questioning. No doubt this Mallapi is important enough that even the fishermer can grasp what it's used for.

It's a cave, of course. He'd been told the Bitter Coast was full of them. Garyn would bet everything he owns (admittedly not much at the moment) that this Mallapi is a storehouse for Camonna Tong smuggling operations. It explains how the Tong knew that Lirielle's brother was dead, and how he might have been desperate and stupid enough to try to make his fortune by robbing it.

The locals' directions are vague - most have been steering clear of it, no doubt - but Garyn's tracking skills make it easy to spot. A half-trodden path of grass leading from a small cove to a moss-covered cave entrance. Used fairly regularly, from the look of it. He'd guess probably between six and a dozen men guarding it.

He approaches carefully with his sword drawn...

Comments

[last_kallig]

Ibani curses and runs after Garyn. She doesn't need the blood trail to follow her prey, but it is extra confirmation.

"Knew I should have experimented with the karkhole's brain chemistry to keep him out," she mutters to herself.

[moonandstar]

Lucky for them, he hasn't gotten far.

Garyn catches up with him at the bottom of a hill just outside the cavern. He's fallen on the uneven swampy ground. He's lying near the edge of a pond, moaning and grasping at his leg. He seems to have hurt it badly. Not that a healthy leg could have helped him escape, but this does simplify things considerably.

Garyn grits his teeth and plants his foot on the tough's injured leg. The armored mer yelps.

"Let's keep this brief. Ruran Stoine. Where is he?"

The criminal looks up in pained bewilderment. "Who?"

This prompts Garyn to grind his boot against his wound. The Tong muscle shrieks in pain.

"Did a Breton thief enter this cave within the last two weeks?"

"That fool? He's dead! We killed him!"

"And where is he now?"

Here the thug seems to find his courage. He knows he doesn't have long. He spits at Garyn. "He's in the latrine pit with the rest of the filth. Now kill me, you bastard! You'll be joining me soon enough."

"Thank you," Garyn says, and obliges him.

[last_kallig]

"It seems the language of contempt with regard to the disposition of corpses is much the same here as it is at home," Ibani remarks after Garyn obliges the Mer.

"This place is theirs, they ought not to have disposed of him like an animal." Or a slave, though the Sith Empire's laws don't make many distinctions between the two.

[moonandstar]

Garyn nods. "From what I've seen of them I wouldn't expect better."

He climbs up the slope back toward the cave entrance.

"Let's find him and cremate him. I can't bring him back to his sister in the condition he's likely to be in."

[last_kallig]

Ibani grimaces. "No, definitely not. I'm sure there's something in there that will assist with burning, even if it takes a bit of encouragement."

Or a LOT of encouragement. Lightning isn't exactly like fire bur it can work in a pinch.

[moonandstar]

"Fire salts, if we're lucky," Garyn says. "Though firewood would do."

Garyn opens the door and re-enters the storehouse.

"I'll look for some. I'm not eager to leave you to find the corpse by yourself, but you're the one who can lift it without having to wade into a pile of shit."

[last_kallig]

"I'll look for it. May take a while, a corpse leaves no presence in the Force."

Time to search for the smell of shit, most likely. Not the best part of this trip.

[moonandstar]

Garyn, meanwhile, heads off toward one of the side rooms. It stands to reason that if there are fire salts anywhere in this place, they're in one of the rooms a battlemage was staying in.

He arrives in the chamber on the left. They hadn't had time to have a good look at it, but the Tong has furnished this place. A wooden platform has been installed, with three hammocks, a chest of drawers, and a desk.

On top of the desk, there are a few pouches filled with fire salts. And a lot more. Garyn's face lights up as he realizes what he's found...

[last_kallig]

Ibani finds what she's looking for, eventually. She's VERY glad she can lift things with the Force, right now.

Some leveraging and quite a lot of terrible smell later, she's recovered what's left of a person and placed it together in a pile. More or less.

"You deserved better than this," she says aloud. Possibly to the corpse, possibly to the universe at large.

[moonandstar]

Garyn practically skips back to the room Ibani finds herself in. He's not often the most exuberant fellow, but he's practically giddy by his standards.

"I found some fire salts," he announces.

Then a pause.

"And some smuggled duty free liquor."

Much longer pause.

"And the finest alchemy set I ever set eyes on."

[last_kallig]

Ibani reacts to his happiness. "Did you now? That sounds like a fine prize!" she says.

"How big is it, do you need help moving it?" Ibani's rather fuzzy on alchemy equipment in general.

"I found the remains of the fellow we were looking for. In very bad shape, as I expected."

[moonandstar]

"I've stuffed as much loot in my pack as I could manage," Garyn says. "The alchemy set was the first thing in. I'm keeping it.

"We caught them more or less between shipments, so there's not too much in here. But if you could carry some into Milliways I could pick it up and find a place to fence it. Should be more than enough money to pay off the Tong, and they'll be none the wiser that it's from their own goods."

He looks at the mangled, filthy mess on the floor in front of them.

"We should take him outside. Good ventilation or no, I don't want to be trapped in the same room while he's burning up."

[last_kallig]

"I can carry some things in, sure. Just point me at what's most valuable for the weight."

"But first, cremation."

Ibani lifts the remains with the Force, floating them toward the entrance.

"You might not need to fence the goods at all, just trade them to Bar for coin or something easy to sell. If she'll take them, of course."

[moonandstar]

"She might not take some of it," Garyn says. "They already moved most of the skooma, though. That's the first thing they look to move."

He nods. "As for him, I think I spotted a small clearing nearby. Should be a good place to lay him down."

[last_kallig]

"That sounds like as good a place as any," Ibani agrees.

The clearing is quiet and empty, perfect for their purposes.

"Nothing sapient within five kilometers of us, so we should have plenty of time," she informs Garyn.

[moonandstar]

Garyn gathers some branches and brush, laying it underneath and around Ruran Stoine's body. Then he opens a pouch of fire salts and begins to scatter them over his body.

"I'm not a priest. And it'd surprise me if you were an especially holy man yourself. But may Arkay guide you safely to the next life."

He flicks the small hackle-lo lighter on his ring and steps back. Ruran Stoine's body goes up like a wick.

Behind him, the sun is setting over the Bitter Coast.

[last_kallig]

"May the Force be with you," Ibani says as Ruran Stoine's body goes up in flames. Neither Jedi or Sith go in for the whole god thing, so that's the closest cultural equivalent.

"That's quite the sunset," she says, after a while. "Even if it isn't a proper sun by my own universe's standards."

She tries not to think about the metaphysics or the physics physics of Garyn's universe too hard, they give her a headache.

[moonandstar]

Garyn walks up next to her and takes her hand.

"I can't say the Bitter Coast is the first part of my world I would've chosen to show you," he says.

"But to me, if it shines like a sun, it burns like a sun, and it sets like a sun, it's a sun. How and why doesn't matter. What matters is we're here to watch it."

The changing light and colors are causing shadows to dance across the swamp. It's actually sort of pretty at this time of day.

[last_kallig]

She squeezes his hand gently. "I'm just glad I'm here with you, and that I could help for once."

"Healing?" she offers. After all, all the enemies are dead now and the work is done, more or less.

[moonandstar]

Garyn brings the fingers of his free hand up as close to his tenderized neck as he can bear to.

"Yes, now's a good time for it."

[last_kallig]

It's but the work of a moment to mend flesh and heal burns. Ibani has had a LOT of practice with burns, what can we say?

She chuckles softly. "At least I know how to keep myself to myself when healing now. Could have been dangerous if anyone other than you had been my first patient."

[moonandstar]

"Well, between the two of us, I'm rather glad you didn't back then," Garyn says.

He leans his head in toward hers.

"Would we both be here now, I wonder?"

[last_kallig]

Her head touches his. "That's a good question," she muses. "Quite possibly not, considering, well, everything."

Their assorted emotional baggage, for one.

[moonandstar]

"It'd have required a sort of courage I'm not sure I was born with," Garyn says. "I'd never been allowed to feel this way, or allowed myself to feel it."

He smiles weakly. "Maybe it'd be easier if more people could cheat their fears."

[last_kallig]

Ibani smiles back encouragingly. "I've wondered that myself, if things would be easier if everyone was force sensitive, or if that would simply make matters worse."

She leans in to kiss him. "But we did cheat, and I'm glad of it."