Kneeling underneath a gargoyle statue, Skrakch ignored the rain dripping down his snout with a determined focus as he tried to make sense of the incongruity that was spread out before him.
The Ratling had come to rest atop the nearest building directly across the street from the Denmother’s brothel. He breathed in great gasps of, relatively at least, fresh air. His tail shuddered from the anticipation of what was to come. As much as he wanted to avoid the situation, there was no turning back. He needed the Denmother, needed the answers she could offer him. And it was to that end that he didn’t turn tail and run.
‘Not that I’d put it like that, if she turns out to be alive and well. No, then I was just concerned about my favorite human, and I’d simply felt compelled to check in personally… Yeah, she might believe that.’
He could still smell the sickly sulfur scent of brimstone emanating from the brothel, but where Skrakch had been expecting to be greeted by a hollowed-out shell of a building, instead stood the intact perfume shop that the Denmother used as a cover for her demon’s real work. There was nothing blatantly untoward about its appearance. It looked like it could just be any other day.
‘It makes no sense.’ Skrakch mused to himself as his eyes roved restlessly over the perfume store's front entrance, with elegant, hand-blown bottles on display through a glass veneer that looked as polished and clean as always.
If it weren’t for the Ratling’s keen sense of smell, it would appear that the brothel’s shop cover was exactly how it always had been, but…
‘I can smell more than just the brimstone now that I’m closer, I can smell the stench of burning wood and spilled blood.’
It wasn’t a faint scent of blood either, the smell was so strong that even a human would fail to notice it after getting closer, blunted sense of smell or not.
Fishing through his pockets, Skrakch settled on pulling loose a copper coin and gripped it tightly in his palm, before winding up his arm for a throw.
Doing his best to stay out of sight beneath the shade of the nearby Gargoyle, the Iskrin leaned forward and tossed the copper coin, watching intently as it… slammed down onto the cobblestone below, missing his target entirely. At least Zacharias wasn’t around to see it. Gods know how much the annoying little freak would have enjoyed the sight. And never let Skrakch forget it to boot.
“Motherless son of a whore.” Skrakch swore softly under his breath, eyeing his surroundings with a grimace as he sheepishly grabbed another coin from his bandolier.
Shaking off a spray of water, Skrakch tried to realign his aim, rearing back and letting the second coin fly, and the Ratling watched as the coin came into contact with the outside of the brothel’s walls… only to disappear out of sight, a small section of the building momentarily shimmering before settling back into its deceptive image.
Skrakch let out an appreciative hum as he stroked his chin, a small grin spreading across his snout.
While the image of the perfume shop had only distorted for a moment, it was enough to confirm things for the apprentice Mage.
‘Someone put up an illusion of sorts to keep things under wraps, but they didn’t bother to consider the smell? Either the illusionist was a fool, or the caster didn’t have time to consider each angle…”
No, the real question was why anyone would bother to try and hide the attack on the brothel. especially considering the whole effect would be ruined if a customer tried to step through the illusion.
“Which means…” Skrakch murmured to himself, lost in thought. ‘There had to be something to stop any old rube from just walking headfirst into whatever the mage had gone to the trouble of concealing.
As curious as he was, Skrakch had no intention of just walking through the front door like some kind of lamb to the slaughter, so the Ratling began making his way to the closest section of the rooftop that would lead him across the street.
That was one of the best parts Dray’Mel's architecture in his eyes, the cramped and crowded streets were perfect for any hoodlum with a quick enough step, and the balls to make a short leap.
Of course, it helped to have a spell like Feather Fall up his sleeve, but Skrakch could remember the days that any missed step could have been his last.
‘On a stormy night like this, even a pro could end up mulched on the cobblestones.’
Lining up his trajectory, Skrakch sprinted across the rooftop and aimed to keep his feet steady, even with the slick stone underneath him.
Kicking off the building’s edge, he felt the same sense of vertigo he’d always felt mid-jump, as he couldn’t help his wandering eyes from taking in the open air below him… and then he was safe, even if he was forced to slip into a tumble upon landing.
He’d managed to cross the street fairly close to the brothel, thankfully, so it wasn’t long until he was a step away from the illusionary wall. As close as he was, the brimstone stench was near overpowering, but that didn’t stop the Ratling from sticking his head through the spell's edge.
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Frankly, a part of Skrakch had still been holding out hope that most of the Denmother’s place would still be largely intact if a bit singed. After all, the more of the building that remained intact meant more clues and more evidence to work out exactly what had gone down since his last visit.
Instead, most of the building looked to have completely collapsed in on itself, blackened wood nearly turned to char as it crumbled inwards, with nothing of the perfume shop being even remotely salvageable. There were huge puddles of melted glass, some that actually were quite pleasing in their mixture of colors and textures. The air was free of any mixing perfume scents as, Skrakch theorized, they probably almost instantly evaporated during the heat.
The wooden desk that served as the counter was completely obliterated. The only thing remaining were the metal innards of the rudimentary cash register. Even those were twisted almost out of recognition.
A thick carpet of ash layered over everything, to the point where it took Skrakch a moment to spot the first of the bodies.
Lying near the doorway with a sizable hole through its chest was a brown Iskrin, garbed in blackened cloth and with a blade having fallen just out of its reach. It was lying on its back, its paws curled inward in the tell-tale pugilistic stance of one who’d met his maker through fire.
The corpse’s sword looked to have been carved from an overly large bone, rather than solid steel, and Skrakch could imagine that somewhere on the Ratling’s body he’d find traces of a slave-mark branded on its body.
‘The poor sap must have been forced to make the initial charge, and earned himself a fire bolt for his troubles.’
Strewn about the destroyed building, Skrakch spotted more and more deceased Ratlings, each killed in a single stroke of spellwork. Some, like the first he’d seen, had either been burnt or had been hit with some kind of pyromantic spell. Others had large scorched open holes in their chests where whoever, or whatever, had ripped out their hearts. The rest were a mess of tangled limbs, leg bones, and ribs piercing through charred flesh.
It helped paint a clear image that whoever had led the attack certainly hadn’t cared about the lives of his men, though that didn’t narrow things down much. A goon or foot soldier, no matter what race, were expendable to most who ordered him to charge towards mayhem, after all.
‘Most folks consider us little more than beasts, after all.’ Skrakch resisted his urge to let out a snarl as he began creeping further into the building’s gutted remains.
It was only when Skrakch’s gaze roamed to the stairway leading down to the brothel-proper, that he noticed the first non-Iskrin causality.
It was one of the Denmother’s Incubi workers, the demon lying splattered against the floorboards. His torso had been hacked asunder, bits of his red flesh and blackened blood splattered haphazardly near his corpse.
He’d likely been rushing towards the safety offered by the basement when the Iskrin had caught up to him, and considering the garbed silk adorning his corpse, it’s not like he’d been dressed for melee combat.
Skrakch slowly began to move further into the burnt-out husk of a building, intending to move closer to the basement’s stairs to find out more about the state of the Denmother, when the sound of steel-clad footsteps ringing outwards halted the Ratling in his tracks.
Deftly ducking behind a collapsed archway, Skrakch held his breath and stilled his movements as he watched a chilling figure dressed in bone-clad plate armor as it walked up the stairs, moving with a supernatural grace that few would associate with the Undead.
Skrakch could feel his tail stiffen behind him, as his breath caught in his throat and he tried to shrink in on himself as much as he could. A vicious shiver ran down the whole of his spine and he had to clench his jaw hard to stop his teeth from chattering together.
The figure could have been anyone, really, if it wasn’t for the two eyes that peered out disinterestedly through the skeletal-shaped helmet as they came to a rest at the top of the stairs and scanned the building.
Whereas Skeletal Guards had two brightly burning orbs in their eye sockets, and Ghasts had rotten empty eyes, the creature standing a few short feet away from Skrakch had two empty, soulless black flames fervently burning in its skull.
Just looking into those blackened pits filled Skrakch with despair, and the Ratling could feel his heart as it began to beat erratically, even as an overwhelming sense of fear gripped him. His paws trembled and a horrible sense of foreboding washed over him. If he was spotted, there would be no escaping this. He would be dead before his body had time to hit the floor.
Unlike a Wraith that screamed out its hatred for the living, the knightly figure before him appeared with the facade of nobility, moving with the grace of a nobleman, but one look into those eyes was enough to chill Skrakch’s blood.
The Deathknight, for it could be nothing else, seemed satisfied with its quick scan of the building and began to move towards the doorway, only to pause beside the lifeless body of one of the Iskrin.
Unsheathing its well-notched iron blade, the Deathknight reversed its grip and plunged the blade down into the Iskrin’s torso. Skrakch’s eyes immediately fell onto the part of the sword where the hilt met the crossguard. Dozens, if not hundreds, of black tally marks glowed there. A tally for each of the Deathknight’s victims.
For a moment, Skrakch could only assume the Iskrin target had still been alive, and the Deathknight was only finishing off a wounded creature when a piercing wail spread throughout the building.
At first, it was a wordless scream of pain, reminding Skrakch of a Wraith, but all too soon he saw the source of the cries. As the Deathknight slowly lifted his blade free from the Iskrin’s corpse, he dragged a spectral form free from the poor Ratling’s body, writhing and screaming frantically as it was forced from its resting place.
The ethereal creature looked like a paler, slightly more disheveled version of Skrakch, but as he watched with bated breath, the Deathknight dragged the creature's soul free from its body and lifted it before him.
With a resounding crack, the Deathknight’s skull mask opened at the jaw, revealing a row of blackened teeth and a dried hunk of meat that was once its tongue.
A chorus of wails began to echo out of the creature’s maw, even as the spectral Iskrin’s soul began to float ever closer to the Deathknight’s open jaws.
Slowly, the stolen soul was forced down the Undead’s gullet, with the skeletal mask slamming close and abruptly silencing the incessant, piercing screams.
Satisfied with its meal, the Deathknight marched out the burnt entranceway to the brothel. Clearly, whatever it had come for, it had gotten.
It took a few minutes for Skrakch to gather his wits about himself, stop his body shaking, and risk heading to the now-open stairway.
‘Though maybe…’ Skrakch thought to himself, still crouched as low as he could go.
‘Maybe I’ll wait a bit longer. Just to be safe.’