60th Day of Ash, 359th Year of the Age of Sundering
Faces contorted in silent agony. Pressed together and sometimes indistinguishable from one another, the ghoulish figures seemed almost to move. The silence of the Great Hall of House Creth was broken with the steady rasp of the whetstone on cold iron. Masagh drew it across the unperturbed silhouettes of his blade.
Was he mistaken? Were the faces exultant? The manifestation had been shifting since it first appeared. Perhaps they had not decided if what they felt was agony or ecstasy yet.
“I know the feeling.” He frowned down at the blade.
The sound of heavy footfalls drew near. Masagh laid his hand on the hilt. Someone was running through the tunnels from the Well exit. The ghoulish knight stood eagerly, looking towards the door expectantly. Everyone was gone from the Compound, and Masagh had been left to stand guard in the Great Hall as the only bound house member.
His distraction came in the form of a thin and reedy Bonecaster. It was Virgil, a bookish man whom Masagh had found little reason to bond with. Of course in a small house of a few dozen over the course of a few centuries one learns their housemates well enough regardless. Virgil was not a pure blood, but the son of a ghoulish mother and human father, nearly fifty years of age.
“What’s the rush?” Masagh stood and hefted the claymore in his hand. He glanced briefly at the changing sheen of his blade before sliding it home with a frown.
Virgil could not be out of breath as a ghoul, or more accurately, he was always out of breath. He did lean over and clutch his knees. The glowing embers of his green eyes were wide. Words tumbled from him in a chaotic jumble.
“Sir Masagh, my brother is dead! We were on delivery and they killed him!”
“Hold on, what happened?”
Virgil straightened and his hand went to the necrotic focus around his neck.
“The wands! Negation wands made for the Underking.” The words were more paced now. “I was tasked with delivering the shipment. They, they attacked us and killed my brother Vincent.” Virgil trailed off at that and his eyes drifted out of focus. Vincent had been even less familiar to Masagh, being a civilian house member. He had nevertheless been eager to help in any way he could. Perhaps someday he would have made a good Bonecaster or Maligner. But no more.
“Hey!” He barked, shaking the junior Bonecaster. “Virgil, tell me who attacked you, how many there were, and where it happened.”
Virgil blinked. Masagh watched his eyes refocus and his mind return to the present. “I need to know if I’m going to help.” He made sure his words were even and calm.
Nodding Virgil began again. “Some sort of beastly men, there were about a dozen. In the river docks, those trench alleys we use for deliveries.”
A mugging then. “And you are sure Vincent is gone?”
Virgil nodded again. “They swarmed us. They took his head because he wouldn’t give them the case.”
“I’m sorry.” He gave Virgil’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. “I need you to show me where it happened. Can you do that?”
Though hesitantly, Virgil agreed.
“We don’t have much time before moon fall.” Masagh said later, glancing up at the open sky. The two walked amongst the shabby streets of Gel’Grandal’s Northside slums. It was especially dangerous territory for ghouls because the area called the trench alleys was a very poor part of the city named for the debris and grime lining the predominantly fishing neighborhoods near the river. Though not usually vulnerable to the seedy muggers that roll pedestrians in the area, the ghouls were vulnerable to being spotted during their nocturnal forays by sailors who were notoriously early risers.
“We’re close. He’s just around here…”
They turned another corner into an alley thick with muck and debris. A pale grey liquid pooled in the alley around what was unmistakably a corpse.
Virgil began to tremble. Boney fingers gripped Masagh’s forearm. He gently removed Virgil’s grip and drew his claymore.
“Do you know which way they went?” Virgil took a hesitant step forward, staring down at the headless corpse of his brother. “Virgil!”
“I- I think they went that way.” He pointed towards the river at the distant end of the thin street.
Masagh bent beside the corpse. With a trick Sabrione had taught him, he scanned the surroundings from right to left slowly. The eye caught more if you moved your vision in the opposite direction than you read in. The corpse bore no other wounds besides the grisly severed neck. There were many footprints going in both directions.
What’s more, Masagh didn’t have the skill to tell how old any of it was. “You said they were beast-like. What does that mean?”
“Covered in fur, they had long tails and snouts and claws, dark red eyes.” Virgil said. “They’re horrifying.”
It was the ichor that finally told Masagh something. While there were many footprints strewn across the debris, only a few were wet with ichor beyond the scene of Vincent’s corpse. They all lead towards the river way.
Standing straight again Masagh settled his hand on the hilt of his sword.
