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"Ansgar Is A False God" (M)

Started by Valtxr, July 08, 2017, 11:05:10 AM

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Valtxr

@Elekta Kount  @Warrior_Queen


   "You can't keep doing this, you know."
   No response.
   "I mean, I don't look like an adventurer, do I? That was a pretty terrible lie. I'm an awful liar, aren't I, Bruce? I think you already knew that."
   No response.
   Nisreen turned her head and glanced over for a short moment. Looked at him. Both Bruce and Nisreen lay in the back of the wagon. Bruce unconscious, Nisreen with her hands on her stomach, staring back up at the stars.
   The amnesiac poison coursing through Bruce's veins. The bandage covering the bite marks on Bruce's neck.
   They were alone on the westward road leading away from Reajh. Only a few miles down it. The night quiet. Calm.
   "But you did it anyway. It was nice of you, don't get me wrong. I think...well, I suppose I'll come right out and say it. I think you're lonely, Bruce."
   No response.
   "I'm right, aren't I? That's why you offered me the free ride and not that band of actual adventurers in the tavern, hmm? I..." Her lips twitched, "...feel like I owe you an apology, Bruce. For taking advantage of you like that. It's just something I needed to do. This messy and bloody business I must attend to."
   No response.
   "Oh. Well. Now that I've said that, I feel like I'm in no place to be lecturing you on what you should and shouldn't keep doing. I suppose we all have something we're compelled to do. Something we really can't resist, can we?"
   Nisreen hesitated. Fidgeted nervously. Sat up in the wagon and looked about in the dark of night. The lurking trees of Sirantil surrounding the wagon and the road. Plenty of places to run and hide. But nowhere to escape the words she had spoken.
   "My, my, look at the time. I'd hate to disappear on you like this, Bruce, but I really do have to go." Nisreen started to climb out of the wagon. "Busy, busy. Always things to be done. Scholarly work is harder than you might think."
   Halfway out of the wagon, she paused. Climbed back in. Leaned over and kissed Bruce on the forehead. Laid a hand on his cheek.
   "Thank you, Bruce. For your kindness."
   Then Nisreen climbed down and out of the wagon and fled into the night.

* * * * *

   Father Marcus Doe was still missing.
   Nisreen wandered through the darkened streets of Reajh, her hands behind her back. There had been no reply to her knocking on Doe's front door. None yesterday either, hence all the time she had available to go to a tavern and find Bruce—hopefully he was doing okay.
   Seemed she would have some more free time tonight.
   A pity, really. Doe, an actual Priest in the Church of Ansgar, had agreed to have a nice long talk with her about the religion. Her first breakthrough in studying the cornerstone of culture in Connlaoth and it—so far—turned out to be lackluster. Perhaps Doe was just a busier man than she had anticipated. Possibly. And there were other priests, of course. Maybe none that would agree to have a talk in their own home at night, but other priests nonetheless.
   Nisreen walked. Passed a drunken duo of men in the street.
   Well, on the plus side, she had plenty of time now to continue working her way into Reajh's criminal underground. A necessary facet of her life, such that it is. Nisreen knew she had gotten lucky with Bruce. The poor man had practically thrown himself at her. But it wouldn't always be that way. Likely, she would need a reliable supply of a few choice potions and solutions for her hunter's kit, and the gold to pay for them. That meant odd jobs for the people who could acquire the ingredients. Same as in Arca.
   Nisreen walked. Considered a few options.
   And walked.
   And, as she reached the intersection of two streets, an orange glow caught her eye. Reflected off of her glasses.
   She turned. Looked to her left. Toward the glow.
   A fire. In the distance. The smoke rising into the night.

* * * * *

   A small crowd had gathered around the old, burning house by the time Nisreen arrived. Curious onlookers, concerned neighbors. A squad of five guards stood near a wagon in the street loaded with buckets of water from the nearby aqueduct; seemed they realized their efforts were mostly futile. Now they just watched for wayward embers, ready to put out any that landed on the two nearby houses. The fire just needed to burn itself out.
   The old wood creaked and cracked.
   "Stand back, people, stand back!" said one of the guards in a commanding tone.
   The crowd backed away a few steps, Nisreen with them.
   Another creak. A loud snap.
   And the whole front side of the house caved in, a mere pile of blackened and flaming wood.
   Screams. Gasps. Fingers pointing inside the house.
   And Nisreen saw it. Him. Father Marcus Doe. And she, too, gasped and held her hands over her mouth.
   Doe was dead. Naked. Hanging from a pole in the middle of the burning house. A severed boar's head on his shoulders. Blood all down his legs, his own head strapped to his groin, his severed penis stuffed into his mouth. A forearm, not one of his own, hung from his neck like a gruesome amulet—a large dagger tattoo on it. Words on his chest, just behind the forearm, written in Doe's blood: "Ansgar Is A False God".
   And, encircling his body and touching his feet and the boar's head—suspended by ropes and a few smaller poles—the corpse of a giant snake. Eating its own tail.
   Nisreen backed away from the crowd, her hands still over her mouth.
   She knew that symbol. The Circled Snake.
   It was tattooed on her back.

Elector Count of WAAAGH!

A big man was pushing his way through the crowed, his footsteps clanking every other step at his sight. He was an aged man, but nevertheless he seemed strong, carrying a mace that was resting on his shoulders and a shield on his other hand. The big man's face, which housed a finely groomed mustache, showed no emotion as he almost marched forward to the front of the crowed.

He raised an eyebrow as he looked up to the mess above, before snorting while shaking his head. "And I thought I've seen it all..." he muttered to himself as he kept a looking at what remains of the house.

The big man continue to watch the burning in silence, deep in thoughc. As while the crowed react and recoiled to the house on fire, the big man just stood there and watched, unmoved and unfazed.

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