Sable clouds oppressed the sky above Pentref. A silent and immobile cyclone hung above, though it resisted the formation of a leering, abyssal eye. Dusk had come early today in preparation for the nefarious activities that needed its cover.
Morrigan was one such person who required the cover of darkness tonight. She had some dealings that required subtlety. Morrigan had spent her daylight tending to a variety of different people after Lucien’s announcement this morning, to her great displeasure.
Her daytime role as the lady-in-waiting for Queen Priodi Helygen required her to do such. Though, she was meant to be on leave due to Isten’s return.
Once returning from Reiol Palace, she expected to be able to spend time, lost time, with her son Isten. When she finally managed to see him again, he seemed bizarrely withdrawn compared to his outgoing attitude of breakfast, which made her further depressed.
While speaking to Trulliad about how to deal with Isten, he slipped her a letter from Lucien detailing information about Horyd Coeden. It finished with a series of favours that Lucien asked of her, leading to where she was now.
‘If it’s Cardinal Purity… Awfully ironic that he should be a personification of virtuousness, yet he is secretly so depraved. Oh well, he won’t be much longer, I suppose.’ Morrigan thought to herself.
She currently stood atop of the High Walls of Reiol, an astounding piece of architecture that controlled the flow of travel within Cymorth. It bridged the monuments to one another, which stood behind her as a magnificent backdrop.
A harsh breeze brushed past her body, her clothes fluttered, and her hair danced in it. Goosebumps lined her arms from the winter chill, and she shivered slightly.
To carry out her mission tonight, she was dressed in a broad black hat, white linen shirt, brown breeches, and knee-high boots. All her clothing were second hand from a thrift store; it was rugged and damaged in some places. She intended to look as if she were a teenage street urchin.
Morrigan had the seamstresses within the Intelligence Service modify the clothing to mar some assets that would identify her as a middle-age woman. With the addition of the service’s makeup artists, they disfigured her face as if she had been afflicted by smallpox.
With these combined, and some Malevolency, they hoped to manipulate where a person’s attention lay on her by exaggerating her flaws. Her horrific facial defacement would redirect most attention, which would be her most memorable quality.
Morrigan pushed through the bustling crowd that used the High Walls as a short cut, weaving through the clump of human mass. From time to time, she would barge into someone causing them to curse her. When they caught sight of her face, they’d give a look of revulsion and storm off.
She reached the city centre and disappeared into an alleyway. A vile green-brown coloured sewage water lay in puddles on the floor. Its smell was terrible for anyone passing by. Rats squeaked as they swam through it, searching for droppings of food nearby.
She trudged through it; her nose wrinkled in disgust at the horrendous sanitary conditions of the city underground. Morrigan stood on something that squished beneath her boot. She looked down and saw an unconscious, emaciated man on the floor who groaned beneath her weight. She pushed off him and carried off into the haze-like darkness.
She rounded the corner and reached a forked road that was lit by a small lantern. She turned left and passed through another alleyway which led to her destination. A small wooden door provided entry into one of Horyd Coeden’s institutions.
Morrigan rapped on the door loudly, and a brass peephole opened in response.
“What do you want?” A gruff voice asked from within.
“A mystical fantasy land.” Morrigan responded with the customers pass code.
The door opened revealing a fat woman dressed in greasy clothing. She cringed when she saw Morrigan’s face but gave her entry inside.
A thick smog descended upon her the moment after she entered the building. Its smell was acrid. Her boots stuck slightly against the ground due to the various liquids that had been spilled by the customers.
“What do you want?” The fat woman repeated herself.
“I’m looking for someone. They asked for my presence and to meet me here…” Morrigan trailed off, looking sheepish.
“Don’t know, don’t care. Find them yourself.” The fat matron responded curtly. Morrigan rolled her eyes and strode into the building.
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Before she could get too far, a figure interrupted her path. A naked man burst through a door and fell to the ground. The door bounced off the wall and hit him in retaliation. He didn’t respond to its hit. His pupils had dilated and were staring vacantly into space above him. It was unknown what world he was in.
As Morrigan tried to step over him, a naked woman charged out after him. She dragged him by the feet and pulled him back into the room where they both came from. Two different pitched groans and moans reverberated through the thin walls. Morrigan blocked the noise out as she continued forth into the building.
‘Lucien wrote that it was between Cardinal Purity and Cardinal Peace that should be here tonight. If I remember correctly, Purity is a wizened old man with a grey beard and hair. He also has blue eyes. Cardinal Peace, on the other hand, is much younger and is bald and clean shaven. He has green eyes.’ Morrigan recounted to herself.
She stalked through Horyd’s debauched den, searching for the Cardinal that supposedly often ventured here. Its corridors were lit by Gothic sconces, which provided a weak light that illuminated the haze.
Moans of pleasure echoed in the corridor from the innumerable occupied rooms. Doors transitioned into curtains the further Morrigan ventured into the den. She watched silhouettes of men and women dance with the flames of the torches. It was pure carnal behaviour.
She arrived before a staircase that led to the first floor. It opened to a huge space that was filled with divans, sofas, and cushions. Embroidered curtains draped down from the ceiling, where white smoke clouds floated to meet.
Entangled men and women roiled on the furniture; a huge mass of human meat squashed together. ‘Disgusting.’ Morrigan thought to herself. As she tried to step past them, she saw movement from the corner of her eye, and it was coming towards her.
A man dressed in a flamboyant purple doublet slithered over towards Morrigan. He waved a fan towards his face, condescension and disgust evident in his eyes. He stopped Morrigan in her tracks, one of her feet stuck between the legs of a man and woman curled on the floor.
“You’re a bit young to be here… And disgustingly ugly. You won’t find any service with that face.” He attacked venomously.
“An important patron called on me tonight. Didn’t tell me where to find 'em.” She responded in earnest, covering her aristocratic dialect with a twang.
“Do you have their name?” He waved a fan, impatience glinting in his eyes.
"Didn’t give one. Wouldn’t take the risk of being implicated, or something like that. Though he said to find him 'ere.” Morrigan lied.
“How should I know, then?” He replied sardonically. “What rank patron are they?”
“He’s a VIP. He hired my services for tonight.” Morrigan explained.
“Ah. The VIP area is in the north-eastern wing. Find your own way.” The man returned to the fog, disappearing from Morrigan’s sight.
‘What a repulsive twat.’ She secretly insulted the procurer in her thoughts.
She danced deftly between the writhing mound of human flesh and found her way to a secluded corridor. The smog had cleared, and with it went the noxious smell and the moaning. It led towards the VIP section.
The corridor turned silent, only the sound of reverberating footsteps was heard nearby. The sconces in this corridor were better lit, her vision was not obstructed, and she saw a small wooden-metal door.
Morrigan knocked on the door, though there was no response. She turned the handle and opened it a crack to peer inside. Before she could look, emphatic groans and panting escaped from within. ‘No wonder he couldn’t hear.’ She lampooned silently.
She peered inside the crack. A man was intertwined with a boy of an indeterminate age, and a woman who hugged him from behind. She was not certain if that boy was an adolescent child or an effeminate man.
She spied on the trio until they changed positions. From there, she got a clearer picture of the man before her. He was bald and clean shaven; his eyes were green. Towards the side of the room, his clothes were stacked in a neat pile with a sceptre on top. Caduceus’s staff, the Channeler’s weapon of Cardinal Peace.
Morrigan forced open the door with a push. It slammed against the wooden wall with a thud. Cardinal Peace spun around, fury in his eyes. His partners jumped in shock; they covered their body parts with haste.
She stood her ground against Cardinal Peace’s hostility, and withdrew a lamp from within her pocket. Metallic clinking resounded from its golden chains that twisted around her hand. Cardinal Peace’s eyebrows jumped up in fear. His mouth widened for a scream. He was too slow.
“Inferno.” She whispered, channelling her Malevolent energy through the lamp. A floral explosion of fire burnt Cardinal Peace asunder. It unfortunately engulfed the boy and woman who joined him in bed, but it was a necessary sacrifice.
The Cardinal was separated from his Channeler’s weapon, he could not save himself. Any defence or attack he normally would have been able to counter with was impossible without it. His death was inevitable after Morrigan initiated the assassination.
Three charred bodies fell to the divans beneath them. The mattresses, once stained from a mixture of their bodily fluids, were now blacked with soot. Morrigan shook her head and moved towards the dead Cardinal. She rested a hand on his blackened chest and channelled her Malevolency.
Fairy-like sparks of cadmium red energy danced at her touch. They flowed out of Cardinal Peace’s chest and into her own hand. Twenty minutes later, and she had finally absorbed his remnant energy.
‘Damnation, I knew his Malevolent energy reserves were large, but not this much! He almost rivalled a Great Family leader…’ She thought to herself. ‘The Church almost had four Cardinals at the level of a Great Family leader if I didn’t assassinate him tonight!”
She had undertook a substantial achievement tonight. Not only had she completed Lucien’s request to assassinate the Cardinal, but she also hit the Church’s overall power level.
Morrigan turned to exit the room and the Caduceus’s Staff caught her eye. ‘Should I take it?’ She thought to herself. ‘No, best to leave it.’
She quelled her greed and stealthily escaped Horyd’s brothel. No one had been alerted of Cardinal Peace’s death until much later that night. Morrigan was not remotely suspected of the assassination. However, Horyd Coeden, the innocent, was suspected.