The Realm of Austur Episode 1: A New Light

A fragrant haze fills the dimly lit room, blending with the smell of alcohol and freshly cooked food to provide a distinct atmosphere to one of Kadath's less prestigious establishments, The Shepherd's Dirty Secret Publicans. In the back, people sit around tables in large groups passing drags of flavoured tobacco in an intricately designed water pipe or enjoying a meal (at least to the extent one can at a place like this.) At the bar, mostly occupied by regulars and bewildered foreigners, the owner takes a bottle of moderately strengthed alcohol, pouring a shot for his most loyal customer.

"That's another 4 gold." The bartender tells the ragged looking customer, who had already downed his drink the instant it was poured. "Will you put that on the tab as well?"

"Nah, I'll pay this one..." The man replies. He drops four gold coins onto the table. The bartender takes the coin, prompting the man in the ragged cloak to produce another coin.

"My tip?" The bartender asks with an amused smile.

"Nope. Last one." The man takes his last coin, flicking it in the air. As it reaches the peak of its ascent, it seems to glow a silver-ish hue, suspended imperceptibly longer than it should be, and returning at a feather's fall to the man's palm.

The bartender chuckles. "And how do I know you're good for the rest of the money."

"Aw, c'mon. You know I always get you back."

"Yeah, yeah, I know..."

The light from outdoors illuminates the darkest section of the tavern, the entrance painted by the silhouette of the new coming patron. A large, imposing man with half way decent clothes (a rarity to the 'Shepherd's Dirty Secret' familiars) lets himself in, scanning the crowd. Eventually, he takes his seat at the bar next to the ragged man.

"You might just get it soon..." The ragged man adds.

"Heya', stranger." The bartender greets amicably. "Can I get you anything?"

"Information." The bulky man replies. "Do you know where I can find 'the Kid'?"

The bartender raises an eyebrow, looking at his other customer. "So I'm not the only one you owe a debt?" He asks slyly.

The lean man chuckles. "Well, no, but this guy doesn't look like one of Herod's boys."

The muscular man stares at the customer next to him in disbelief. "You're the Kid...?" He asks, shifting to a grin. "Well, I guess I can see how a, ah, 'man' like you could have got that title."

The lean man smiles. "If my reputation exceeds my greatness, who am I to complain?" He says.

"I had you pegged for a good for nothing climbing to the top of the bottom." The imposing man sneers. "Looks like I was right."

"Oh, and what sort of cloud do you occupy in heaven?" The Kid asks. "You clearly aren't a nobleman, so what are you? Merchant? Crafter? 'Legitimate' businessman?"

"That's none of your concern." The man growls. "I fear no man called the kid, now show me why they whisper your name in the alleyways!"

"You want to take it outside...? And to whom do I owe this pleasure?"

"Tobar, the Butcher." The man replies with a confident pomp.

"Then allow me to demonstrate why I'm called the Kid, Tobar."

The Kid and the Butcher walk into the mid-afternoon streets, the usual stench of Kadath's slums barely masked by the bakers' goods being laundered in the market up wind.

They take an alleyway into the waterway, navigating the labyrinthine irrigation system to a patch of unowned lot that was promised as a power plant for the lower quarter years before, never to be followed up on.

"Choose a weapon." Tobar, the Butcher says.

"I'm wearing one." The Kid replies, causing his cloak to billow dramatically, glowing in its silver tone.

The Butcher produces two large steel blades, smirking confidently at his opponent. "Then let's begin!"

The heavy man lunges forward, bending each forearm behind his back and readying a heavy sweep in an X shape. In his mind, surely a killing blow. The Kid's movement is so swift as to be instantaneous, as he brings a coin before the aggressor and launches it with super sonic force directly into his chest. As Tobar falls flat on his back, the gold coin rebounds from the stone wall behind him, ricocheting off of the ground and into the grip of the Kid's teeth, bloodless side in.

The Kid steps toward Tobar and leans next to him, taking the gold coin and wiping it on the Butcher's shirt.

"What am I called?" The Kid asks.

"T-the Kid..." Tobar manages to sputter out.

The Kid stands, stomping on Tobar's chest, causing an almost comical spurt of blood to rise from where the coin pierced him.

"My name is Hamon, the Kid. And do you know why the Kid is a great title? Because it's mine."

"Eat... S*** and die..." The Butcher retorts, his heaving chortles only speeding up the blood loss.

"When you get to the afterlife, make sure to tell them who sent you." Hamon says, taking the coin and pointing it in Tobar's face. Gore painted the surrounding walls, but seemed to slip right off of the killer's shabby brown cloak.

Taking the time to search his fallen foe, Hamon uncovers some papers which he haphazardly crumples into a carrying pouch on his belt. One of the sealed envelopes had a strange, rock solid lump in it. Opening the seal, he dumps the contents into his palm. A black gemstone framed by a golden base slips out.

Strange... A jewel in an envelope? I should wait to sell it in case it brings heat.

Finishing his search, Hamon produces the man's gold pouch. By itself pretty heavy, but even better, six hefty bars of gold are stored right next to it. Each had to be worth at least a thousand single coins.

This just makes things shadier, but I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. I'd better get rid of this guy and slip out of here.

Crouching down again, Hamon begins infusing some of his left over mana into Tobar's clothing, taking heat energy from his own body, he sets the Butcher aflame.

Strolling back into The Shepherd's Dirty Secret, Hamon dumps a pile of gold in front of the bartender. "I think this covers my tab, plus a little tip." He winks.

The bartender chuckles. "You're lucky I've got more blood money than I, let alone the authorities, could possibly keep track of."

"Aren't I just?" Hamon asks rhetorically. "Hey, stop by my place after you close, will ya'?"

"What makes you think I want to go to that louse infested dirt hole?" The bartender grins.

"I need something appraised." Hamon says, shrugging. "I want to wait a while before letting Herod find out I came across money, so you're the only one I can trust."

The bartender sighs. "I'll see what I can do."

"See? I knew I could count on you! Catch you later."

Hamon waves and hastily picks up his hat, placing it over his head and jetting through the door. Back into the day time streets, he flicks his coin into the air, one of many.

"And all praise be unto you."

It's almost over. Just a little longer until we get to leave...

"May your precious grace keep us always-"

"And may your light forever shine upon us," the girl sitting on the pew in the dimly lit corner mouthed in perfet sync as the priest finished his prayer.

The priest then motioned for the people, almost thirty in total, to be dismissed. A few of the monks walked toward the priest, bowing and giving thanks before they shook his hands and left. The others filtered out, leaving only a few people still sitting in the pews.

"You have that whole thing memorized, don't you?" asked the boy sitting next to Elia, having noticed her mimicking the priest.

"And you don't?" she whispered back, looking right into his dark grey eyes. "It's the same thing, over and over again. It wouldn't be chapel without it."

The boy suppressed a chuckle, and stood up to stretch. Soon he held out his hand to the girl, which she took.

"Quite the gentleman today. What's gotten into you, Jacob?"

He gently pulled on her arm as she stood up, at which point he let go of her hand. He made a sarcastic remark under his breath, but he knew she was just kidding. She had thanked him on many occasions over the past few years for his help, even though he continued to tell her not to thank him.

"So what are you going to do today?" she asked.

"Well," he started as he walked out of the chapel, "I'm supposed to help split firewood today. I'm not sure when, or if, I'll have the free time to do something remotely interesting. I'm guessing you've already planned something?"

Elia shook her head to say no, but her expression said otherwise.

"That's a lie and you know it, Elia. Do you want to go back and see the priest? Maybe ask for forgiveness?"

She laughed and started walking faster, passing by Jacob with a smile on her face.

"I'll see you later, then. Have fun working with the monks!"

Jacob sighed as she waved and walked down the winding corridors that lead to the womens' side of the monastery. Taking a left, he walked toward the exit near the back of the monastery.

"When will she learn to actually do something useful?" he muttered to himself, a look of deep thought on his face.

~ ~ ~

I think I can fit one more book inside...

Elia stood in the room she shared with another girl not much older than herself. The ceiling was high, somewhere around ten or eleven feet. There were a few lamps on the stone brick walls, all carefully made in iron by hand. Light green and pale yellow light shone in an intricate pattern on the floor and the base of a bookshelf as the sunlight passed through the small stained glass window near the ceiling. The floor was made of stone tiles, all made in the shape of hexagons, with some being only slightly larger than others.

The bookshelf was four feet tall, made with nails forged by the few monks with skill in smithing, and wood from the trees in the nearby forest. The desk beside the shelf was painted by someone else who had lived in the room once, with delicate gold scrollwork borders making it seem far grander and more expensive than it truly was. The two beds were as simple as they could be.

I think I'll take this one.

Elia picked up one of her books on the shelf, and was about to put it in the cloth bag she carried when she saw another on the desk.

I should really make up my mind already...

Elia swapped the books, careful to put the one back in it's rightful place on the shelf. She tried to keep it in order, which fortunately wasn't hard to do considering her roomate didn't use the shelf.

Good. Now the only thing left to do is get outside without someone noticing. If I go through the gardens to reach the hallway the goes by the kitchen...

It is finished.

Those words echoed throughout his mind. The words came from different voices and different tongues, over and over. For a time, they continued, whispering, telling, screaming and telling. The voices sang and they cried. And one by one, the voices died. He was left there in the darkness, alone. Alone in nothingness. Then he was aware of how cold he was. It was unpleasant, but at the same time exhilarating. The ability to feel was foreign and exciting, but why, he did not know. He lingered there, in the dark and the cold, but soon the cold became unpleasant.

Finally, he opened his eyes. He lay stripped bare in a room carved out of stone and ice, lying amongst the dead. His body was marked from head to toe with markings in some strange black ink which he did not understand. The bodies lay strewn in haphazard piles. He sat up and found that he had been lying in a circle of runes which had a diameter of 15 feet or so. Oddly, only one other body lay in the circle. Next to him lay a corpse different from the rest. It was the body of an old man, marked with the same arcane markings as he was. His eyes were open wide in shock, as if he were surprised to die. His body seemed to be in an advanced state of decay. Much of his extremities was marred by curling blackened flesh. Perhaps whatever spell he had cast had gone wrong, but what was he doing there.

A better question might have been, who was he? The answer came the moment he asked the question. He was called Red, and oddly, a second thought came to mind, not his own. Today was his birthday.

"Excuse me?" Arcturus' reaction was like a deer in headlights when the naked figure appeared in front of him. 

Where am I? How did we become separated so quickly? Wait, when did we get here? It felt like just a few seconds ago, but my surroundings look different. Must be this fog.

He loosened himself a bit before speaking to the mysterious woman in front of him.

"Who are you, and take these clothes." He spoke as he summoned a tunic from the pocket dimension where he had packed his things for the trip and presented them to the woman.

"...OK, jeez, enough with this suspense stuff, already!" Hamon says impatiently. "Just what is this rock?"

"It's resonite. You've heard of that, right?"

Hamon scratches his head. "It's some kind of mana conductor?"

"More or less, yeah." The bartender says with a sigh. "Resonite can be enchanted with mana of any type, and it'll store that to be used any time for as long as the mana lasts, although overuse can break it."

"Sounds useful. And it's worth a lot?" Hamon asks, taking a swig from his bottle.

"A lot...?" The bartender gives an amused smile. Hamon offers him the liquor, which he accepts, consuming half the bottle. "It's worth a damn fortune."

"Then I'll forgive you for drinking me out." Hamon teases. "Would having something like this get a guy like me arrested?"

"Well, if you mean that everybody in town but you knows that one of the other two lords has one and thinks you stole it, no. There aren't any public records of these things being sold. They aren't too popular with frumpy nobles. Not pretty enough."

"So it's mostly just an accessory for rich sorcerers." Hamon concludes.

"And musclebound street fighters, apparently." The bartender adds.

"Probably just a stupid, overconfident runner."

"Like you." The bartender chuckles.

"Exactly like me." Hamon agrees. "But the real question is, who was he running for? I don't want to wind up on some crazy necromancer's hit list. Hell, I wouldn't even pawn that fate off on some overstuffed merchant."

"That is a mystery." The bartender says. "Why don't you come over to my place tomorrow, and I'll call up a friend to help us look into this. I can weigh up your gold, too, so those con-artists at the bank don't rip you off."

"Oh la-di-da, I get to go to the luxury house?" Hamon asks. In that moment, the illusion fades. Where once stood a dark haired, amber eyed man in a red dress suit with black slacks and an apron now stands a man of the same height, smartly dressed in a white nobleman's suit with crimson hair and green eyes.

"That's right. The luxury house."