Informing

It didn’t take us long to reach his office; while none of us rose to anything that could be called so much as a jog, we had all very much been stretching the upper limits of what could be called mere walking on our way here. Markus let the door swing open with a light push, moving to a cabinet by the window without a word as Rokharth silently settled into a shadowy corner. I spared the old monster a glance as he leaned against the wall, ignoring the wide and mocking grin on his face in favour of watching my boss retrieve a bottle of wine and five glasses. The blond mob boss settled into his high backed chair, setting the glasses before him with one hand and tearing the cork out of his bottle with his teeth.

The young looking mobster filled three of the glasses without spilling a drop, sliding one in my direction with a slight flourish and holding the other up over his shoulder. Just before Rokharth could snatch the glass from his hand, he pulled it back just slightly, “Before you get too deep in your cup Rokharth, go and fetch Cerik and Korin; I don’t want to waste time explaining all this to them later.” The fact that the vampire seemed at all interested in what seemed to be simple wine, I began to have serious doubts about what exactly I was being served.

The ancient monster scoffed, “As if that mindless husk could possibly have anything to add, but I suppose I might as well fetch them both if you’re asking oh so sweetly.” With a chuckle, the vampire blurred out of the room almost faster than my mind could process. As the fact that he hadn’t so much as stirred the air in his path despite his incredible speed filtered through my Paranoia, I distantly noted that the wine glass Markus still had beside his head had been emptied.

Swallowing a ball of maggots and unpleasant calculations of just how far I was from being feasibly able to repay the slight of my recruitment, I pretended to take a sip from my glass. I wasn’t about to drink whatever the fuck a monster like Rokharth enjoyed -nor did I intend to get drunk at any point in my coming interrogation- but either not drinking or waiting for Markus to drink before following suit could both be seen as a sign that I didn’t trust him.

Which I don’t, but I certainly don’t see any benefit to letting him know that. Granted, I highly doubt he has any illusions as to my lacking trust in him.

Markus tapped the lip of his own crystal goblet as we waited for the man-shaped monstrosity to return, “I notice you’re holding a bundle of… glowing clothes, it seems. I presume you didn’t just lug it to me by accident?”

I nodded, pulling the bundle of faintly glowing cloth out from under my shoulder and placing it on his desk. “Yeah, I don’t think this has anything to do with Merthoux but I found it suspicious enough to bring to your attention.” Or rather, I didn’t value it enough to hide it from him and thought he might know something about it. “I found this hidden in a bricked up chimney inside what appears to be a secret prison for a different gang. The place looked like any other abandoned hovel, but the basement was locked with a heavy iron door and filled with barred pits and more conventional cells. Most of which had corpses in them ranging from months to decades old, but none of them were occupied by the living.” I shrugged, spreading one of the shirts out to be more visible, “The place had a single guard, but they seemed to be mostly relying on obscurity to keep the place safe. He was wearing a jacket with the same symbol as these clothes stitched onto the back.”

Markus picked up one of the uniforms, running his fingers over it and inspecting it closely. “I don’t recognize the style or the material, though I can tell it’s high quality, if somewhat…” He trailed off into a hum, gently pinching a golden shirt along a near invisible seam, “Hmm, it almost seems… mass produced.” He let the faintly glowing cloth fall back to his desk as he picked up another identical shirt, “I doubt any of these were hand made, they’re far too perfectly identical and far too… soulless, for lack of a better word. No one put any passion into these outfits, and they have a uniformity I recognize from the Farmer’s Guild’s outfits. These are of far higher quality, but they have that same efficient "copy of a copy's copy," assembly line product feel to them." His fingers drummed against one of the shirts for a moment before he shook his head, "I don't know who made these or where they come from, much as it galls me to admit." He tapped his cigar in his ashtray before taking another long drag.

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He leaned back in his seat, his eyes flicking to where Rokharth had seemingly appeared from nowhere and was once more standing impassively in the shadows before he blew a cloud of smoke and turned his gaze back to me. As I was processing that Rokharth had somehow entered the room without me noticing until Markus drew my attention to him, the goggled gangster spoke again, "I do recognize that symbol though. It belongs to a small-time gang that’s been harassing just about everyone lately, though I’ve never seen any of them in an outfit like this.” He flicked his cigar, scattering embers into his ashtray, “They call themselves the… what was it, Clerics, or some such.”

Rokharth grunted, “Sons Of Xlerixas. They’ve been claiming to have some sort of major backer but so far nothing’s come of it. Might be something religious, but I’ve never heard of any Demons or entities called ‘Xlerixas’ before these jokers popped up.”

Markus waved his hand, leaving a whirling trail of smoke behind the cigar in it, “Yes, them. It’s a bit strange they would bother hiding what seem to just be better versions of their existing uniform, but them having hidden bases in our territory is exactly what I’d expect from those arrogant upstarts.” He took a calm sip from his glass, which I faked mimicking a moment later. “Well, if we even needed an excuse to go after those dipshits, we’d have it with this.”

He tossed the bundle of uniforms back to me, “We’ll have to have someone look into what those are made of, but you can keep ‘em.” My surprise must have shown on my face, because he started chuckling not a moment later, “What, did you think I was going to take them? I wouldn’t last long in this business if I made a habit of taking the spoils from my subordinates all the time.”

I nodded slowly to his words, I suppose it would be rather difficult to keep a criminal organization functioning if you robbed your employees; the type of people who would be inclined towards this sort of work would also tend to not take giving things up rather well. The thought left my head as my Paranoia alerted me to a man opening the door behind me and walking in. With a polite nod, Cerikon walked briskly to a comfortable looking armchair next to an unlit fireplace opposite the wine cabinet. Not a minute later, Korin shuffled into the room, lacking any of the subtle elegance with which Cerikon moved and with a hypodermic needle sticking out of her arm.

Markus effortlessly tossed a full wine glass over to the orange haired man who caught it with equal grace, somehow managing to not spill so much as a drop in the process. The gang lord spared Korin a glance, visibly holding back a sigh as he watched her flop bonelessly into a chair opposite his fire haired financier and seemingly pass out on the spot. With a shake of his head, the kingpin set the glass he had clearly intended for her aside.

He clapped his hands, startling Korin awake with a jolt and dodging the metal boomerang she instinctively threw at his hands. The addict frantically looked around, bloodshot eyes scanning the room as if she had no idea where she was or how she got there; which, given the state she came in, wouldn’t surprise me. Markus ignored her confusion and gestured to me with both palms raised, “It seems our friend here has found evidence the Eight Points and Xlerixas are intruding upon our territory.” He sat back in his chair, waving to me with his cigar, “Give us your full report, leave nothing out.”

I nodded, repressing a withering sigh as I began to once more recount the tale of my mission and return.

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Wizened eyes looked out upon their domain, a practiced look of kind wisdom hiding an array of cold calculations running behind their cerulean depths. He had no one around him to be fooled by this facade, and yet his trained caution would not let him ever fully drop his guard. His voice rang out into the empty balcony around him, “The fire has burned out, it would seem.”

From the empty stillness around him a screech of inhuman and incomprehensible sound seemed to echo out of some ever distant nowhere. Where lesser men would have deafened themselves with blades to be free of the maddening sound, he simply nodded with the barest twitch of a frown upon his dry lips. “A fire rune wrought from human flesh, you say?” He carefully repressed a sigh, taking a sip from a golden chalice to soothe his displeasure. “Well, my dear friend, it seems we are at war once more.”

He turned away from his city, “I won’t allow them to interfere with the ritual, find the perpetrators and lay their broken bodies at my feet.”