RP:The Butcher of Cenril - a carcass for the cathedral
Background
Trouble stirs in Cenril.
The church, long a bastion of order and theocratic bureaucracy, declares itself the government of Cenril.
One resident responds with a brutally clear message of defiance and opposition.
Notices found in the Whalers Bar
September 09
By decree of his holiness, the Archbishop of Cenril, William Compton IV : The illegal, and sinful, actions of the invading pirates, as well as the ever growing corruption that is sweeping the lands, has forced the church's hands. On this day, in absence of any real form of governmental rule, the church declares itself the sovereign ruling body of the port city.
September 14
[Written on slightly bloodstained paper] The church can go stuff itself, y'bunch o' poncy bankers. Declare all y'like, but y'wont be getting any obedience jus' because you reckon you're in charge - The Butcher
Backstreets of Cenril
Valentin stalked out of the Whalers Bar in a foul temper. The butcher weren't too fond of priests, even when he'd been human. Pompous, condescending bastards, the lot o'them. So full o'self-importance and holier-than-thou preaching. And now the pack o'bankers reckoned they was takin' over governance o'Cenril? It wasn't on. Chaos, anarchy, and violence suited the vampiric butcher much better than priests running things. The man approached one of the many beggars on the street, and gave him a gold coin, saying "'Ere, guv, I've heard word them assassins what was shootin' up each other is back at it, and is targetin' priests. Can y'come fetch me when one o'them priests or acolytes leaves the cathedral to head on home? There'll be another gold in it for you. Us locals have t'keep an eye out for them black-cloaked bankers, innit, or priests'll be droppin' like flies." Persuaded more by the gold than the 'concerned' butchers words or motives, the beggar readily agrees. Valentin tells the scruffy, one-armed man where to find him.
Hours pass, but eventually the shuffling gait of the one-armed beggar can be heard at the entrance of the long-vacant house Valentin had stayed in that day "Oi foundem, guv'ner, 'eys headin off and ones walkin' jus' a block away." Valentin gives the man another gold coin "Cheers, guv. Buy yourself a few meals and a drink, courtesy o'the Archbishop." As the man shuffles off, the butcher strides out and towards the street the beggar mentioned. It was a sidestreet, one of the many narrow lanes and shortcuts used by Cenrilli residents to cut between the major thoroughfares and districts. When Valentin finally sees his prey, he is disappointed. A mere acolyte, and dawdling along without a care in the world. Valentin steps into a culvert, momentarily out of sight of anyone, and binds his essence with that of his shadow, and sinks down into a pool of hazy darkness. And then the hunt is on. Shadowshifted, Valentin seeps up the wall and along the eaves, swiftly catching up with the acolyte, following him, waiting for the right moment.
After half an hour of stalking the acolyte, the young man turns down a narrow alley - more a space between two buildings than a traditional walkway. Valentin, finding the effort of maintaining the shadowbonds strenuous, decides that this was the perfect opportunity. Slipping to the ground, the butcher releases the bindings and rises to his feet in corporeal form behind the acolyte. Alerted by something, the young man turns, only to find a large, meaty hand around his throat, pushing him against the wall. The young man would see a hard-featured muttonchopped face, red eyes gleaming beneath a battered old bowler hat. And then unconsciousness claims the acolyte. There were many empty buildings in Cenril, mostly belonging to those who had died or fled from Preklek or Pirate. Valentin, newly promoted to Scleratus in the necromancers' guild, once more summons the black tides - and shadow eyes extend from his shadow on long tendrils, passing through cracks in the walls to examine the buildings in the immediate vicinity. At the same time, the shadows lengthen to cover and obscure Valentin and his unconscious prey.
It doesn't take Valentin long to find a suitable building. The cobwebbed chairs and thick layer of dust made one old townhouse an ideal spot to complete the butcher's task. Now would be the hardest task. Carefully, Valentin chants, the incantation taught him by his twisted sire to assist in obtaining 'experimental samples'. Well, kidnapping is kidnapping, no matter what you call it. Hissing sibilant syllables creep over the butcher's tongue, as a cage of black icy shadow forms around the acolyte. As the last dissonant word slips free, Valentin wraps cage and contents in shadow, binding the result into his own shadow as cage and acolyte sink into inky darkness. Valentin then walks around to the entrance, his shadow feeling burdensome as it always did when he had to maintain such bindings. A quick glance around indicated Valentin would have to wait for a young couple to pass around the corner, but once they did the butcher's cleaver was out of its holder and cutting through the cheap lock in a precise blow. Valentin tromps in, closing the door behind him with a chair angled against it. He cleans off a table, and prepares himself a workspace.
Valentin was fortunate. He had found a couple of buckets and a large wooden tub used, no doubt, as a poor man's bath. Butchery was a job which required know-how, and while the basics were simple, it was finetuning those basics which lead to mastery. A proper butcher could handle both primary and secondary cuts - in other words, starting with a pig, and ending up with pork chops, with little to no wastage from the animal. Speaking of the beast - Valentin releases the ritual binding the cage to his shadow, then causes the shadowice cage to dissipate. The first step in butchery was to knock the beast out. A swift kick to the base of the Acolyte's skull ensures his unconscious co-operation. Next, the exsanguination. Once again, unsettling sibilant words hiss out of the necromancer's lips as he binds his shadow with the cryumbral tides, performing the incantation to convert it into a golem of shadowice. Once complete, his shadow strips the acolyte of clothing, holding the naked carcass-to-be by its ankles above the wooden tub. Valentin himself grabs a hold of the Acolyte's dangling skull with his left hand, pulling slightly to create tension in the neck as the burly vampire sends his butcher's cleaver chopping swiftly through, severing the head and causing the first spray of blood to splatter from apron to tub, before gravity starts draining the body of its superfluous liquids. It's a slow process, but after dumping the head in a bucket Valentin finds and cleans an old mug, using it to fill and refresh himself from the young man's stream of Claret Vitae. Eventually, the body is largely drained, and Valentin ponders the next step. Normally, had he the facilities, the butcher would then scald and de-hair the corpse much like he would a pork carcass, but in this case he would move straight to the evisceration.
It was this stage, Valentin knew, which weeded out those unworthy of the butcher's trade. Some people just couldn't handle cutting open something's abdomen and then pelvis, slopping out all the greasy, mucky organs they contained. O'course, some people were just soft little nancies, as far as the butcher was concerned, and they didn't matter anyway. The tub was rapidly becoming a grisly soup of blood and viscera as Valentin ensured the organs were properly removed. Once completed, he wiped his arms off on a dusty old bedsheet and once more took out his cleaver. It was time to split the carcass. It was time to test out just how useful his vampiric strength could be. With his shadowice golem holding the body with numerous dark tendrils, applying the right amount of pressure, Valentin raises his oversized mithril cleaver above his head, then powers the cleaver down the centre of what had once been an acolyte. The heavy, razor-sharp blade cleaves through flesh, bone and cartilage, splitting the body in half, making it ready for the secondary cuts. It is the secondary cuts most people think of when they hear the word butcher: legs of lamb, cuts of bacon, chops, steaks, cutlets. No need for boning or trimming here, though, Valentin decided, and the butcher gets back to his task. The arms worked off, then seperated again at the elbow. Likewise with the legs, seperated again at the knees. The head was still in one of the buckets, where the butcher had dropped it earlier. All that was left for Valentin now was the delivery of the eleven cuts of clergy.
Late at night, the butcher Valentin makes his delivery. Wrapped in and obscured by his shadows, the butcher slips silently through the dark of night. He does not enter the cathedral itself - such would be foolhardy for an undead creature attuned as he was to shadows. But on the doorsteps he slips off the the large bundle he carries, the butchered pieces of the acolyte. Working with unnatural swiftness, he lays out the carcass, resting the acolyte's clothes over it, and places the head down, a note stuffed in its mouth. If read, it will say "Make Witness: The sins of the city have come for its clergy" Valentin would then swiftly depart, still cloaked in shadow.