“They’re getting smaller all the time.”
“What’s that, sir?” Quertra was in the process of changing the bony man’s waste bag.
The bony man was clad in a chitinous cloak that hid all but the top of his mangled head and tired eyes. From his wrought iron carriage that doubled as a restraining bed, he looked out from the unfinished penthouse, down to the town of GutWorth, 300 feet below them. The locals were selling their wares, getting into petty fights that only rarely ended with real injury. They were too cowardly to use their Remarks, most resorted to fists.
“Every day that passes by without my presence… they get smaller.”
She was humming a song to herself that had been all the rage last season. It was from a new genre called murder music, where the screams of those caught by Death were sampled into melodic uptempo numbers. She liked this one because the victims scream was so pitched down it was barely identifiable.
The man clenched his fist. His fingernails were scoured with bite marks. “I am their god, I should be down there, keeping them from shriveling away into nothing.”
“I think that will come any day now,” she lied, patting his diminutive head. “You know us, we just want you to heal. You can’t blame us for being too-“
“I got baaaaaad fucking news!’ Daaz Chesterfield ripped the door off the hinges as she crashed through, bug eyed and frantic. Her standard entrance. Quertra wasn’t at all concerned, through she did make a mental note to replace the door as soon as possible.
Daaz slapped a piece of paper on a stained glass table in the center of the room before getting up again. It was a loop of a broad shouldered woman Quertra vaguely recognized, an identification image, as well as a failsafe to send out for targeting if any of the lowers betrayed them. The image raised an eyebrow endlessly, flushed with the smugness only the Legacy could give.
“Ah, I’ve seen her. She’s annoying. What’s her number now?”
“Who fucking cares. She’s DEAD.” Daaz said bluntly, “and I haven’t heard anything from 41 since they fucking LIED to us and said that Adam weirdo was dead. If he was, why was everyone else on the scene lifted, hmmm?” She held her hands out, eyes wide.
The man in the carriage began moaning. Quetra ignored him. She adjusted her suit skirt, making sure that her lapel of Lemure’s coat of arms, the yawning mouth of a Deluge Wyrm, was straight. She only wore a half mask, her green-tinged oval face visible on the same side as her stub. Her left arm had been chopped off in a duel years ago.
“Everyone this guy comes in contact with so far has ended up dead…we can blitz him, but not sure if we have the manpower to risk it.” Quetra put up her hands, not seeming that worried. “It would be so much easier if Lumenescia had allowed us more members, our best strategy is….”
“Fuck the manpower, we can take him on.” Daaz pointed at herself and then Quetra, “We get the other four, wait for the old man to wake up and get his shit together.” A reluctant gesture at the man, whose moaning had risen an octave. “And ambush him all at once. Like we did with the BroadChurch uprising.”
“We must kill the bear, let's enter its cave. We must stop the bees, let's attack the hive,” she said. Her mom had told her many stories on the ship that her great great grandparents grew up on, stories that would get her killed by the Grand if any outside of Daaz knew she still recited them daily. “You see how foolish that sounds?”
She picked up a syringe, the man's wailing rising in intensity. Was he terrified by such a powerful opponent, had the sudden arrival shaken him that much? Quetra did not much know, or care. She tried her best to take of this sick feeble man, but he was not who she paid fealty to. “We’re in need of a second opinion.”
“By all means.” Daaz gestured towards the man, now convulsing, the cloak surrounding him seemed to possess more vitality. “About fucking time. He’s gonna be pissed when he finally wakes up.”
The man's screaming was cut short by a quick injection in the throat. His neck went limp, and his body sunk even deeper into the massive cloak that he wore like a second skin. Quetra picked up the door with her good arm and leaned it onto the frame, making sure it would be presentable for him when he truly awoke.
When the man opened his eyes, it was not the dim and confused look of one living out his last days, but a composed and confident glare. The look of a war hero who knows he should have died long ago. Annoyed to have been brought back to existence, but willing to hear out the reason.
“Hello Morgan Lemure.” They said in unison, offering their hand in the classic supplicant stance.
“Quetra, Daaz.“ The now soft spoken and measured man said, he paused before continuing. There was a cough, finding to his surprise that his throat was ragged.
He got out of his carriage, moving experimentally. The cloak trailed behind him, quickly molding itself to a more fashionable, lightweight form. “Do the other four remain with us?”
“Undoubtedly. We have an issue.” Quetra paused, this was not something she was looking forward to sharing. “9 is now our lowest.”
“Six deaths?”
“Five today. 17 was killed two weeks ago. But five have been killed in the last 24 hours by one target.”
“Or so we believe,” popped in Daaz, wanting to be included.
“No… it’s six,” Morgan Lemure said. He bought out a small hexagonal device from under the now breathing cloak and squeezed its sides. Within moments 31 lights lit up. There were 10 further indents spread chaotically around the sides that stayed unlit.
Quetra did not know how the object worked, but she knew which light corresponded to which number. “41 is-”
“Please do not talk as if this is unprecedented,” Morgan said. “I see no reason for fear. There have been losses of much greater value. The only thing unique here is the disrespect being shown.” With no trouble, Morgan Lemure made the jump from the floor of the highrise to one of the pillars that supported the half finished roof. His cloak formed two claw-like appendages that helped him climb to the top as he talked. “It does make our job easier. If he is unwilling to show respect, we have no obligation. The usual dueling benefits given for particularly strong opponents will not be followed.”
Daaz took out her Remark, two knuckle dusters with excitable suckers on the tips. “Good, lets burn the fucker then!”
Quetra said nothing, and thought only of how impressive her leader’s control of his cloak was, even with his condition. The “infestation”, as he called it, had limited his consciousness, turning him into a senile babbling man akin to a stranger in his skin. They could cure him for a time, but the cure was drying up, and they had to ration it like food during the Deluge.
But restored to his glory, it was hard to remember that. His eyes, clouded in white aether, had never looked as brilliant as they did now.
“I think you may favor a more subtle approach, am I correct, Syre?”
“Possibly, Quetra,” he said, now perched on the quarter of the roof that had been constructed, looking down on them like a skulkcrow. “This man is our priority, but also unpredictable. 41’s purpose has always been as a bellwether, and even in death they continue to serve it.”
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”Well maybe this guy just got lucky. I’ll fucking murder him. I’ll do it easy.” Daaz said. She was obviously itching for a fight, it was the only real thing she cared about. Quetra was jealous at how simple the life that Daaz lead was.
“I can’t risk any of you. Sending you against this man would be unwise and risky.” Lemure said. Daaz let out a petulant gasp of frustration, but Quetra knew from experience that would be as far as her rebellion would go. The Constants were Constant for a reason. The numbers were expendable by nature, but she and the five others had proven that they could transcend what was basically a glorified trial period to become Lemure’s inner circle. They were his legacy.
From the top floor, ceiling mostly unbuilt or caved in, they could see the entirety of GutWorth splayed out before them. A scratched and harshed red landscape of sediment and clay guarded by sculpted hovels and more respectable townhouses that were outliers, but grouped together, like herds of CrawlCows. Large swaths of the land were ruined and burned, but even these remains had the foundation of new buildings, being constructed by those who hadn’t understood their refusal to move had consequences. What was habitable was grouped together in massive clumps, like singflies on corpses. Tenements and buildings with no purpose were built on top of each other, so many of these structures seemed like poor imitations of the Embassy, the tall building that was taller than even the Drum (she thought of it as a great hollow Drum, but hadn’t told anyone as to say so felt like sacrilege in a way she couldn’t identify)
The Embassy Lemure jutted out from the port that cut through the Gar river and was taller by several orders of magnitudes. Querta could even hear the construction and annoyed orders from workers on the other end of the building, finally working on adding a new wing to the seventh floor. Lemure retreated further into the cloak. The patches of fur and veins reminded Quetra that it was made out of Wyrm skin. A fitting trophy for the one who had killed it. Even when Morgan was dormant with the strange sickness that made him forget, he never took it off.
“This is a place of safety, for us and all that live here. Anyone who wants to kill me will need to kill all that I hold dear.” Lemure’s brilliant eyes, scanning the town impartially, locked onto something to the left of the embassy. A collection of alleys left over from a commercial district long destroyed. Quetra couldn’t see anyone there, but it was a good 600 feet away, she couldn’t be expected to.
Lemure chipped off a piece of the roof he sat on, and did something to it under the cover of his cloak. “Quetra, I am going to pause any change to the order. I know this will be controversial, as others will surely die before this is over, but for now, whatever number a member of Lemure legacy has is permanent until this man, this Adam, is killed.”
Lemure revealed his hands, the scrap metal was now in the form of a hefty and powerful spear. “From now on, the only promotion possible is the open slot of 41. Whoever kills this man will earn it.”
Before Quetra could answer, Lemure in an unexpectedly fluid motion whipped the spear in the direction of the alleyway. There was a distant but clear scream from the direction which he had been staring.
“An assassin, he had just manifested a Remark and was staring straight at me. His motive unknown to me, but he was not a resident.” He jumped down to the floor, and acknowledged both Quetra and Daaz. “It can all be too much sometimes, can’t it?”
.
.
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31 was lucky enough to see the Concession Courtyard fall, as if a reward for a day intolerable in its mundanity.
She was waiting for the drop with 29, embarrassing grunt work for numbers of their size, but the benefits of drug running did soften the insult. The inside of the Memorable Wretch wasn’t bad. A slow day, as the diner was officially closed, only open for business such as this. Bad business, as she called it. Which was funny, because business was very good.
Their plug was late, despite working there they hadn’t seen her at all. Mousy sort, the type to weak of limb or will to even try out for the legacy. A reserve member, sure, but almost everyone in town was a reserve member. You needed to be if you wanted protection, see?
Anyway, they were passing the time really casual like. The stranger gave them plenty to talk about. 31 was about to make a great joke about all the deaths in their ranks, when suddenly, a sound like a cavity driller pierced her eardrums. Were they being attacked? Was the world collapsing? Was this what withdrawal felt like???
Who knows how long she would have stayed in panic mode if not for the porthole in the shop's dull clay walls.
It perfectly framed the tail end of the Concession Courtyard collapse. The small zigzag set of plank stairs that lead down to the road was still present, but there was now a gaping hole where the Courtyard once connected them to the sewer tunnel. A spot where 31 had walked just hours before, when she and a few others had been rudely escorted away due to the danger this Adam supposedly posed.
Outside the window the street was now busy. From every house there was at least one person cautiously poking their head out from the line of clay shops, trying to find the source of that great crash. Once it was found, they milled around the street with others already gathered, sharing looks of bewilderment and rumors with no good origin about how it had happened.
The newly minted 29 whistled appreciatively as he leaned into the window, his face obscuring her view. “I think I can guess who was on there.”
“No you don’t, you haven’t even met him.” 31 stepped away from the window, reacclimating herself to the reality of the present. She bought the curtains down to deny 29 another look.
“But I’m right, right?” 29 hit the table in a steady rhythm. “That was the work of that Adam guy, the reason why I’m 5 ranks higher than I was this morning.”
“Was” was an accurate term. “He’s dead now, whoop whoop. Get used to waiting for promotions again.” She walked over to the counter and hit the buzzer. Where the hell was Devon anyway?
“How do we know he’s dead?” 31 flinched.
“If you see a body walk out of that.” She flung her arm in the direction of the window, a dust cloud still in the process of forming. “Then I’ll be the first to admit I was wrong.”
29 didn’t seem satisfied with the answer, even though it was perfectly agreeable. “This guy killed like… well, everyone who got got today.” He spread out on the bench, closing his eyes. “He could of escaped in the tunnel, he could of-“
“It’s over. Move on.” 31 was searching her wrist scan for information on Lemure’s current hierarchy. Retired members had three new entries. The former 22 (not a surprise) the former 35 (to be expected but tragic) and…
“What. What is it?” 29 rolled off the table and tapped her on the shoulder. “You’re just standing there, what is it?”
She showed him with a flick of her veins. His smart veins were a few minutes behind her. Another whistle “Damn, I’d never thought I’d live to see the day.”
The calm, confident face of 41 stared at them in the medium of flesh. Eyes closed, lips coyly pursed, cowl perfectly coiffed. Overlaid on the picture in the color of a rash was the bright red symbol of a worm's open mouth. 31 always assumed she would die long before 41 ever did.
“So I guess 40’s the new 41?”
Even though 41 was deceased, their spot remained theirs, only the maw of the Wyrm communicating that they could no longer enjoy it. “Everythings been locked!” she should have been 32, for instance, but her number on her neck had yet to change.
29 sighed. “Oh come on, I thought advancement was supposed to be instantaneous!”
31 gave a shrug. “It’s controlled by Lemure, if we’re no longer advancing-” she stopped herself. She put a hand on her neck, deep in thought. “This could be a test.”
“Like, they’re not actually dead, sort of test?”
Fingers drummed on the table in rhythm to her voice. “They are, but I think that's the thing of it. 40 is still 40, not that he even deserves such a title.”
Finally, after what felt like hours, but was really just 12 minutes of waiting, Devon, their good for nothing plug appeared, carrying a box that seemed quite small for what was supposed to be in there. Her black hair was a mess, and her eyes were irritated, as if she had been crying. What did she have to cry about? She had a cushy as grand job serving clientele as nice as them all day. And she got paid for the privilige!
“What the hell’s the matter? New side effect?” She ripped the box from Devon's hands; the younger girl's grip was nothing compared to her own. Opening the box, all was in order. The small grain-like pieces of the dream-dust moved in unison, shifting like a slice of an ocean. She sampled a piece, instantly feeling lighter as she felt flashes of violence. It was heaven in a box.
“Perfect, great haul. No pay today though. The boss was disappointed we had to resort to threats.” Devon didn’t say anything, just continued to look down and sniffle. “So consider your continued existence your reward.” 31 punched the girls shoulder, and 29 let loose braying laughter far louder than the stunt deserved.
“You don’t want to know what I had to do to get this for you.” It would have been preferred if Devon stayed silent. She gave the bag to 29 before replying.
“Then don’t tell us. You dig in the shore, we keep ourselves clean.” She surveyed the girl up and down, not wanting to end the fun. “You’re a reserve member, are you not?”
“Yes.” The quietest reply.
”And you’re good at digging.”
”Well by necessity, yes.”
“Well then good news, we have a new mission, investigate whatever in the Grand’s name happened over there.” A mad wave at the now shrouded window. “So get moving.”