Job Gone South
A few notes: This is ultimately inspired by Blades in the Dark, a game I haven't actually played yet! We keep joking my character for City of Mists is a Blades in the Dark character who fell into the wrong game. The character that appears at the end of the story and their card are references to a previous game which informs our City of Mists game. It's fairly important for Shade's backstory. Also, I waffled a bunch on Knives and Needles. Couldn't decide if that's one character or two. Lmk your thoughts if you have them.
Another rainy night in Barishrana. What else is new? Place sees so much rain that it destroyed the city centuries ago. After that, city planning improved. Floods happen, but usually not enough to really slow the city down. Li’l bit of rain won’t stop the citizens from trying to find cash and it sure as hell won’t stop nobles from exploiting them.
“Shade, what do you see?” Knives, our leader, at my side. They were right, time to focus up. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, shutting myself off to the physical world. The sound of the rain and the smells of the city, the breathing of my companion all faded away from me, opening my eyes to the world of spirits. A dark, sort of greenish overlay on top of the physical world. I called out to the spirits in the duke’s manor, asked what I could give them for a bit of sight. Most of them were old servants of the manor, all too eager to do anything to screw him over. Many cried for his blood, but some merely wanted trinkets from his collection stolen and placed on their graves or at the homes of their loved ones. These I accepted.
I opened my eyes again, but I did not see the world in front of me. I saw the inside of the manor, several rooms at once, seeing through the eyes of the spirits. Opulence wasn’t enough to describe this place. Wealth beyond our imaginations, but not for long. The spirits showed me the entrances and exits, showed me where the guards were stationed, and eventually gave us a route to the vault. Once we got there, the guards would be no issue for Knives and Needles. Then it’d be up to Moon and I to get into the vault. Well, she’d get us in, I’d get everyone else in. Once we grabbed the loot, it’d be back to Cricket for the biggest payday of our lives. Guess he had some personal issue with the duke. Didn’t matter to us, so long as we got paid. Looking back now, maybe I should've wondered about it more.
We came in through the boat house. Their gate was no problem for Frog. Apt name. Slipperiest bastard I’ve ever met. Even Knives could never pin him down in a hand-to-hand match. And he found his way through such tight spaces, you’d think he was redistributing his weight to cram into tight spaces. This gate was a joke to him. And then we were in. After all, who keeps their boathouse door locked?
The Spirits kept me abreast of any guard movements, so we’d have a smooth time getting to the vault. It was just the ones by the Vault we’d have to deal with. It was a breeze. That should’ve been a red flag to me. No job is that easy.
We reached the Vault and the guards were down before they knew what hit ‘em. Knives and Needles were a fearsome pair. That put the spotlight on me and Moon. She stepped up and walked through the door like it wasn’t there, pulling me with her. As we stepped in, it occurred to me: this was the only place the Spirits hadn’t shown me. That should’ve tipped me off too. I’d just figured it was warded. But that wasn’t all.
I turned around to start working the door open. Should’ve had Knives and Needles do it; they were stronger. Took me a minute to get it open. While I was at that, Moon started looking around, lit a torch. I heard them gasp as I got the door open. I turned around and the light from the hall spilled into the small room.
Standing at the back of the vault, chained to a wall, was a Ghoul. A corpse reanimated by a Spirit. I could tell right away those chains weren’t enough to hold it. Without spirit binding forged into ‘em, that Ghoul would break through right away. The chains snapped and it started running at Moon. They pulled a pistol, but too late–it bit into her shoulder and her shot hit the ceiling. Knives and Needles charged in, slashing at it with their tag team tactics. It let go of Moon and focused on the new threat. She went down. “Shade, you know your part!” Knives shouted.
I nodded unsteadily and closed my eyes, trying to shut out the scene of battle. Even taking that out of the picture, it was hard to focus–the spirits began howling when they saw the Ghoul. Like it, many of them craved blood and began cheering, egging it on. If the Ghoul didn’t take it all, they’d supp on any blood that fell outside the vault. I had to shut it down before it got that far. Sever the connection between the body and the Spirit. As the Spirit plane settled in my vision, I saw the Spirit, a ravening, raging creature, no longer capable of cognizance. Probably driven mad by its own hunger. How long had it been down here?
It noticed me and began to run at me. But it was clumsy and acted without thought. I slipped beneath its reach and drew my spectral knife, buried it to the hilt in the creature’s stomach. For good measure, I dragged it horizontally, gutting it. I felt the Spirit go limp and breathed out, coming back to the moment.
The scene before my eyes was a slaughterhouse rather than a vault. My companions were strewn about the room, there was more blood than I had ever seen. Some of them had lost their limbs, Frog was partially splattered on a wall. How long had I been in the Spirit plane? Didn’t matter, they were gone. Knives and Needles with a death grip on the creature. Must’ve been their dying choice. Then I heard a ragged breath and looked over to see Moon, barely hanging on.
I ran to them and pressed my hands on their stomach, hoping to stop the bleeding. Weakly, she batted at my hand. “I’m done for. Find Cricket. Bring him the body. Get the bounty for yourself. One of us should get a payday out of this,” she coughed up blood.
I shook my head and grabbed one of my spirit bottles. She was fading fast. I moved my hand to her chest, began speaking the words. A blue-green smoke flowed from her mouth and into the bottle. When it stopped, I clamped it closed and the bottle had a faint glow. “Couldn’t just let me go, huh?”
I shook my head at her disembodied voice. “Guess not.”
“Let’s get out of here then, Shade. Grab the body. Even if the guards are on alert now, which they oughta be, I’ll get us out. Just listen to me.”
Finding Cricket wasn’t hard. He didn’t make much of an effort to hide himself. But he never did show up to the place he said he’d meet us after it was done. I waited most of the day. After a couple of hours, Moon told me to give up. Should’ve listened.
We tracked him down later that night. Watched him step off a gondola and onto the street. Followed him a few blocks before dropping the head of the body in front of him. He yelped, jumping back at the sight of it. As he inched closer, I dropped the veil and let him see me. He started and then froze.
“What is it?” I asked him.
He looked and then up at me, sniffing. “Looks like a head to me.”
“You hired me and my crew to sneak into the duke’s vault and get ‘the most valuable thing in there.’ Said we’d know it when we saw it. Guessin’ you meant him” I pointed at the head with a knife, “why’d you send us to pick up a corpse?”
At this, Cricket let out a laugh. “Gods, you actually survived. Knew you’d botched a few jobs before, but this is something else,” he straightened his coat, “I didn’t hire you to get it out. I didn’t even hire you to detach the Spirit from dear old dad here,” I narrowed my eyes at him. He sighed like he was talking to a child he was tired of, “I wanted it to kill you.”
I could feel Moon start to bristle in the bottle. “We weren’t supposed to make it out? He set us up!” I kept my face blank and waited for him to keep talking.
“I was hoping daddy here could be useful if he killed you and went on a rampage in the duke’s house. Suppose he’d love to know that plan failed. Left us without a pot to piss in and took my father’s corpse as a treasury guard. Too bad you couldn’t get the job done properly. I’ll have to figure something else out now.” He turned to leave, as if we were done with our conversation.
“Kill him!” Moon screamed at me. Like all other spirits, she howled for blood, only she just wanted his. His alone. Anyone on the spirit plane might’ve heard her.
I’m still not quite clear what happened next. I have blurred visions of him turning around, screaming. His hands clutching his stomach. Moon still howling. Blood dripping from my tusks.
Next thing I clearly remember was dropping him in the river nearby. I washed myself and disappeared. Without a crew, I was in a tough spot. Moon could help me with a lot of things, but I couldn’t do much more than hide out and steal to get by. Want any more than that you need a crew–contacts, resources, a place to hideout. No doubt our old place was worthless now. It was back to life before the crew. It wasn’t easy. At least Moon could keep me company.
One day, I thought I got a lucky break. Some person with red skin and horns walkin’ around the market flashed a load of coin. I knew every cutpurse in the market’d be after ‘em, so we had to move fast. Disappeared with Moon’s help and plucked the purse from them without a sound. Bolted from the marketplace and found an empty building. I ducked in to try and count my spoils. Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw something red. Turned to see them standing in the doorway. I wheeled around, brandishing a knife.
“Easy there,” they said, holding up their hands in a gesture of peace, “just want to talk. That was a hell of a trick you pulled back there. Haven’t seen anyone disappear like that since I’ve been here. Where’d you learn a disappearing trick like that? Bit of special magic, perhaps?”
I nodded, keeping my face neutral.
They nodded enthusiastically. “Interesting. Haven’t seen much of that around here. Tell you what, give me back my purse, I’ll let you keep most of it.”
“What’s to stop me from keeping it?”
“I caught you that quick and you think you’d be able to fight me?”
I grunted, knowing they were right, “What’s the catch, then?”
They shook their head, “just take my card,” like a flash, a card appeared in their hand. I handed over the purse and they took it, counting some coin before handing me both the cash and the card.
“I can get you a life where you won’t have to steal to survive. Three meals a day, place to rest without the guards on your tail. Think about it, uh…”
“Call me Shade.”
“Think about it, Shade. And if you like the idea,” they pointed to the card, “that will tell you how to get a hold of me. Ta ta.”
I waited till they were gone before looking at the card. In fine writing, it read:
Autumn Atticus, PhD Adjunct Professor of Divinity Studies Capra Hircus Academy