#Quiniven

[jessipalooza]

Ghost Town

The city of Gilneas was a ghost town, more so since the destruction of Undercity. The large gates still stood, but they stooped and hunched like an old man, moss tangling down as a beard. Pockets of missing stone and piles of rubble made passing by those gates relatively easy, and once a path was found - overgrown as they all were - it led to the rise of a hill. Beyond that hill, was a tangle of twisted streets of cobblestone, dilapidated buildings of 3 or so stories, a tremendous church - all the makings of a city that once stood proud. 

Not any longer.

Through the maze-like streets, eerie breezes swept dried leaves and yellows scraps of paper. Shutters that had been left open or fallen open and had not yet rotted off banged gently against the sides of the buildings as though cheering the parade of crinkling debris. Rats scurried down the alley ways, looking for anything and everything they might be able to pick clean and carry back to their nests. 

All of these sounds blended together as a death rattle of the city itself. It was a sad reminder of what had been before: lively chatter between neighbors and shopkeepers, groans of cart wheels rolling by, clopping of horse hooves, and the drumming of thousands and thousands of footsteps.

Now there were no footsteps, but that did not mean there were no people. 

Wrapped in leathers of deep blue, brown, and brass, a lithe figure of a woman traversed the shadowed alleyways. Each step was so silent that even the gentle scratching of rats was enough to drown it out. Through the maze, she went without so much as a breath escaping the cloth mask that covered her from the nose down. She was as much a ghost - perhaps better called a spectre - as the rest of the city. Every so often, she stopped, looked up and down the main streets, and listened. A few seconds passed and she continued.

Further through the city she went until her fel-tainted eyes snapped onto the third floor of a particular building. There was nothing tremendous that caused the building to stand out from the others. The outside wood was distressed, the glass windows shattered, the door broken in. Spider webs clung to the crooked awning and with each leaf-led breeze, the building wheezed and creaked. 

And as the clouds shifted, so did a shadow in the top left window.

Three beats of a heart and the woman of shadows pressed forward. She crossed the uneven cobblestone street and looked to the rotted door, crashed to the side. A scrap of paper remained attached to the door with a rusted nail, and below that were three separate marks: vicious cuts, driven deep into the wood with splinters in their wake. Worgen.

But the woman did not care about such a thing. Not truly. Her attention passed over the scars of curses past and turned to the floor. Wooden floors, split furniture with molded wood, stray leaves, rat droppings, and dusty rugs.

And a trail of footprints. 

Within each footprint, the woman stepped to leave her own presence unknown. The gate was wide, the boots large. It was a man, perhaps a foot taller than her. But she knew that much. She knew it was a human man. She knew his name was Lindon Deltane. She knew he was in his late fifties. She knew he was a thief and an attempted murderer.

Up the stairs she crawled, silent and steady. She had done this perhaps a hundred times before. Perhaps more. She had been alive longer than a century and most of those years were soaked in blood - some deserving, some not. This time, it was not justice that brought her to this abandoned house, not her own at least. The man had wronged someone and she was here to right that misstep as a price for her own goal. She wanted information. In exchange, there would be blood. She was fine with that. It was a fair trade.

The top stair groaned; the woman stopped. She waited with a deep and silent breath. Outside, the breeze whistled through the alleys and rattled the shutters. Inside, the building was still. Framed portraits stared down at her, some tattered and others clawed. The men and women judged her as an intruder, as an assassin. She did not care. Without so much as a glance to the ghosts of the Gilneans past, she pressed onward.

Around the corner. Down the hall. The door at the end was opened a crack and in the low light of the moon-lit room, there was a shimmer near the ground. A thread. No. A trap. An easy trap, at least. Slow and easy, she opened the door and stepped high over the thread to cross the threshold of what used to be a master bedroom above a little shop. 

The room smelled of mildew and tobacco. A chandelier had fallen and been dragged to one corner, leaving behind scratches in the wood floor. Half of the furniture was covered in grey, moth-eaten sheets as though the owners expected to return, rather than be eaten alive or cursed. A closet door lay ajar, but no clothing was left. There were sheets on the four-poster bed, however, and on top of them was Lindon Deltane.

The thief slumbered with one hand behind his head and the other on his stomach, clutching a knife. A large rifle lay against the side table, on top of which was a plate of half-eaten rations that included cheese, bread, and salted meat. On the floor were two bottles of whiskey and a jug of water. No doubt he had been moving from building to building, waiting out his time in Gilneas before moving on. One did not steal from a thousands-year old elf that specializes in information, much less attempt to kill one of his descendants - not without biding time at a few different locations to throw off the scent. 

Unfortunately for Lindon Deltane, he did not do a good enough job, and the stink of his misdeeds clung to him too strongly to shake. 

The woman crept towards the bed and pulled from her side the dagger that was her constant companion. It would be easy. A quick slice across the neck, a search for the artifact, and then she would be on her way. There was no need to even hesitate. There was no guilt to be had, no second thoughts. She brought the blade down to the man’s neck.

And at that very moment, Lindon Deltane’s eyes opened. 

It happened so quickly. He brought up his knife and she met it with her dagger, sacrificing his neck to save her own. The two short blades clashed together with a shriek of steel and the woman was able to glimpse the strength of the man and know that it was far more than her own. So when he pulled back his free hand for a punch, she tugged herself back. He caught her mask and ripped it free, taking the hood with it. 

A long braid of bright orange hair tumbled out and Esme Sunshard wasted no time with witty remarks. She shifted back a step and flung her dagger as soon as she saw Lindon Deltane reach for that rifle. The blade sank into his hand and into the wooden butt of the weapon. To the man’s credit, he did not so much as grunt and still brought the weapon up, dropping his knife in favor of the trigger. 

Esme barely had enough time to duck before the rifle shot with a thunderous blast. What was left of the window was blown off the hinges, glass showering onto the abandoned street below. The rifle was cocked, a second shot at the ready, but Esme was too quick. The second shot missed, leaving a hole in the rotted floor where she had been, and she was grabbing one of the decorate wood columns of the bed. Using momentum, she swung herself around and drove her feet into the side of the man’s head.

The two of them tumbled, but Esme’s roll was controlled and she popped up to one knee with ease, her sword drawn. 

Lindon Deltane was less graceful, but surprisingly fast for his size and age - for a human. Even with graying brown hair and matching gray streaks in his beard, he moved like he was in the prime of his life. Still, he was no match for Esme’s speed. 

Before Esme could get too confident, she felt the heat. It was a familiar heat; it radiated off of Lindon Deltane and carried with it the scent of burning wood and the chemical tang of magic.

“Shit,” she muttered - right before scrambling to the side. 

As she moved, she felt the flames lick at her legs and smelled singed hair. It was too close for comfort, but she did not have time to turn to see where the flames had landed. Neither did she have time to thank Faervell for fire-proofing her leather armor. Another blast chased her to the other side of the room and back over to the bed. Flames crackled as they engulfed the brittle wood, and Esme’s only saving grace was the mildew and humidity that stopped the fire from spreading as quickly as it might have otherwise. 

She had to stop him, and stop him she did. Nearly every day she sparred with a felmancer. There was no difference to her between green fire and red fire. So there was no hesitation from her to roll over the bed, raise her sword, and swing it down to sever the outstretched hands of Lindon Deltane. 

The thief cried out in agony as his limbs tumbled to the ground with heavy thuds. Blood began to flow freely - as free as the curses that spilled from his lips, thick with the accent of Redridge. Just where Quineven had said he lived. 

“You bitch! You blood elf bitch!”

Winded from the short fight and aware of the heat closing in as the fire began to crawl up the walls, Esme stood and jabbed the point of her sword against Lindon’s throat. “I do not suppose you are going to tell me where the artifact is.”

Hatred and desperation emanated from the man’s blue eyes. Even as his stumps bled, he spat at her feet. The saliva was speckled red.

“I thought not,” Esme answered cooly. She plunged her sword through his throat, and it drew out a gag and a choke from the man. By the time she drew her sword back, he was dead in the mind. The body was another story, as it twitched - and would for another few minutes, or until the fires claimed it.

Sliding the flat of her blade across her thighs to rid it of human blood, she took in just how much of the room was quickly becoming engulfed in flames. Smoke began to fill her nose and mouth, so the first thing she did was grab hold of the mask that had been torn from her to start with. Haphazardly, she threw the hood back on and tucked the mask up to her nose. It did little to help with smoke, but a little was better than nothing. 

“Where the fuck is this artifact,” she muttered to herself. In such a silent city, the crack of fire and the crumble of wood was deafening. She could barely hear herself, but it did not matter. She had to move and think fast. 

Under the bed, in the dressers. She searched for whatever an artifact could possibly look like. Quineven had described it as hand held and silver, but for all she knew, it could be in a box or a sack. 

“Or a pocket.”

Esme turned and knelt beside the body of Lindon as a final twitch ran down one leg. Without care, she stuck her hands into his pockets - vest and then pants. Her fingertips graced both a gnomish knife and a pocket watch. With an irritable sigh, she shoved him away and began to stand until the realization hit her.

Faervell had kept crystals in something that looked like a pocket watch. Black with a green gem on front. It was enchanted, and he had told her in a night’s drunken slur, “It’s perfect. Small and powerful. Nobody will get to these crystals but me. And you, my darling, if ever you want…”

Hurriedly, she jabbed her hand back into the pocket and grabbed the pocket watch. It was larger than what she was accustomed to with a rune engraved on the front. It was also silver. That was good enough for her. 

Stashing the object down the front of her leathers, she turned and hurried out of the room. As though bidding her farewell, the beam above the doorway crashed down behind her and nearly sent her tumbling forward. Coughing away the smoke, she took the stairs two at a time and spared a glance up to the ceiling as she hurried past. Fire burned through the floor, creating glowing cracks within the wood. Had it not been so dangerous and a tell-tale sign of the building collapsing, she might even stay and look at it to admire the beauty. 

Out the door, she flew and down the road she continued. Once she was a safe distance away, she turned to watch as flames clamored out the window and the building itself shuttered and crumbled away. She knew what would happen. The fire would cling to the next building and continue on until it rained or found more stone than wood. It would continue long after Esme was gone, on her way to Quineven with his request in hand. 

Gilneas should thank her. With one murder, she left the city with more life than when she came.

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@pyrar