The flashing of blue and gold police lights dance across illegal brothels and clubs; Augustine Road completely shut down by the police presence descended upon it, reeling from violence perpetrated a mere hour earlier.
Over two dozen officers holding a cleared perimeter almost forty five feet wide, even more within the boundaries buried in the midst of investigation; from unarmored uniforms leaning against carriages drinking cold coffee to even an undersized five member Special Magics and Tactics Team keeping eyes on the district. Club Dazzle, with its neon lights and sultry advertisements, suddenly under the purview of a full search and seizure operation.
Precinct Fourteen’s sigil flashes atop the armored police carriage, the form parked at the very front of the establishment. A small temporary headquarters established via administrative personnel logging a mountain of evidence, items brought out from storerooms and hidden chambers to be processed at a mind boggling scale. Cardboard boxes lined with arcane censoring lead identified, industrial bags of uncharged arcanite first weighted and subsequently placed into locked storage crates marked with evidence numbers.
Several more of Precinct Fourteen’s officers stand amongst the wet cobblestone of a battle long passed; in between them the illusory projections of red, gold and green humanoid figures animated in the street with an attempted recreation of a combat encounter.
Four officers represented by gold figurines, seventeen red in those of long gone gangers, and one blue of a now processed interrogation subject.
Blood upon stones washed away by rain, a city already forgetting the violence executed naught an hour before. Two body bags covering dead gangers at the location of their fall, the remaining somewhat healthy suspects long whisked away into distant holding cells for processing.
At the edge of the blockades and illusory gold police tape, a crowd from the nearby slums of Landing gather. At least a hundred bodies on both sides of all species and ages, gazes and whispers as they observe on duty police officers in the midst of investigation.
A triage station set up near the entrance to Club Dazzle; a pair of medics created by a dwarf cleric and human doctor working beneath a hastily covered tarp of white treated cloth. Severe, life threatening injuries sealed by magic and potionaries; four gangers teetering on the verge of death as arcane synthesized blood transfusions and healing spells attempt to sustain the living being.
Gloved hands stained red and cleaned by arcane spells, words exchanged between medical professionals away from home clinics and temples bridging an incomprehensible language of medicine and holy magics.
Jason Ford sits upon the wet sidewalk beside the medical tent, a uniformed body currently shielded from rain by a small overhanging shade atop a small commercial liquor store named to Kuik Stop Foods and Drink.
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His hands hold a large, capped steel tankard of unknown formulation; a medical diagnosis by extremely busy medical professionals providing near zero context to its actual function. A simple order of “drink this through a straw” followed without question, the strange, overtly strawberry flavor not enough to hide the bitter and metallic taste of enchanted potionary herbs and salty saline solution.
A mind completely empty as his pale blue eyes allow themselves to be hypnotized with the dancing colors of police lights, the bustle of the city suddenly interrupted by the arrival of Sergeant Luria Jarka.
A half-elvish form angular against the pale colors of arcane street lamps, a slow meandering approach arriving from the crime scene beyond. Her patrol cloak covers her armor and uniform, the treated fabric slightly soaked from an hour left in the continuous rainfall of a day in South. Without words she attempts a calm smile to ease a subordinate, her rookie battered and left for dead in the cold streets of an uncaring city.
Amber, reddish eyes bridge an understanding as Ford’s own gaze doesn’t meet, her voice calling to his soul with a deflected question away from the major topic. “So, how’s that potion taste?”
The half-orc blinks, turning to face his superior officer. A response nervous and unrewarded, a stutter even more pronounced from the day’s events. “I-i… it’s t-terrible… M-ma’am.”
“Don’t worry.” She chuckles at the statement, raising a hand in a headcount of one. “I can count on one finger the amount of people who actually enjoy drinking that stuff. It's a medical necessity, not exactly a good time.”
Sergeant Jarka watches as Jason Ford sips the liquid from the paper straw, the mind replaying and repeating events in an attempt at mental processing. A picture perfect recreation of lethal events; of lobbed off limbs and bleeding out bodies, all his responsibility, all his fault.
She scoffs, lowering herself onto the curb to sit beside her subordinate officer. From within her uniform she quietly pulls forth the small cardboard packaging, the red-green logo iconic within the Alliance’s working class.
Elvish spelling left untranslated, enough to assume ownership in the common language: Netherwood’s
Cylinders of dried tobacco, cigarettes produced by druidic circles in distant elvish cities; manufactured with obscene profit margins through the addictive properties upon the biological systems of humanoids.
Sergeant Jarka takes one pure white cigarette from a nearly full box, pausing as she turns to the young soul next to her. “You smoke?”
“N-n… no.” Jason Ford shakes his head. “N-no ma’am.”
Lips upon dried paper, the police sergeant holding the cigarette in her mouth as she snaps her fingers together. The weave beckons towards the soul, a small gold flame appearing at her index finger that she uses to ignite the tip of the cylinder.
Embers burn, smoke drawn through a body of dried herbs as she inhales the chemical fulfillment. Wisps of white are sent into the night of South, a strange quietness enveloping the world of two souls as ashes drift upon a light wind from the Azure Sea.