RP:The Macabre
Part of the The Seven Sins of Sagittae Arc
Summary: Seteth's attempt to deliver the slain vampire's head to Larewen ends in fortuitous failure.
The Hanging Corpse Tavern
Seteth supposed the vampire had a name back when their head was attached to their body. Now it was simply a skull. A skull adorned with a heavy sampling of fresh herbs and the contents of a small magical poultice poured over its scalp. Even then, the smell remained unpleasant. But it wouldn’t rot. And that is what counted. ‘Then again,’ the thief thought to himself in silence, ‘do vampires rot?’ He opened his leather bag again to ensure the head was still secure. The patrons had spotted it firsthand when he displayed it to the bartender, Steadmen, and the people here seemed uniformly of a sort who would gladly slit a throat for a silver and a woman’s smile. Seteth had to chuckle. Here he was, reduced to a common killer in a foreign land, criticizing other killers. He sighed and sipped his water. It tasted wrong somehow, as if its purveyors had slipped in an ounce of bad wine to keep the price down. Whatever it was, Seteth would manage. He simply needed to remain sober so as to keep his wits about him for when the Lady Dragana arrived as requested. Steadmen’s message had surely reached her ears by now and if all went well that meant a reasonable sum of gold was on its way through the tavern door any moment now. If things went poorly… well, few among Seteth’s foes had anticipated fighting a man with blades strapped to his shoes. Maybe the honorable vampiric royal would be no different than the rest.
Larewen slips quietly into the establishment, mismatched gaze peering out beneath the edge of her cowl. She’d received Steadmen’s message, but now is not the time to go paying bounties. Not after she’d been publicly humiliated; not after her forces within Vailkrin had been eradicated. Now was not the time to be a member of House Dragana inside city limits. The necromancer sidles up along side Seteth, wearily watching those around them. At least the Hanging Corpse had wards to protect her. Seteth matches the description given to her by the one-eyed barkeep. Under her breath she murmurs, “Keep it.” Undoubtedly, she refers to the head but as she speaks, she slides a pouch of coins the male’s way.
Seteth kept his laugh at a low volume, keen enough to recognize the woman’s need for quietness. He studied her briefly, but it wasn’t enough to gauge the reason for this unexpected donation. “If you’ll pardon the inquiry, I am accustomed to preparing for the worst case scenario, not the best. Gold is what I came for, and gold I have received. But I suspect this is a one-time payment, given that services were rendered yet evidently you might have preferred they hadn’t been.” The coin pouch remained untouched. “If I’m being honest, I’ll dump the head in a river at the nearest opportunity. Not much profit in lugging around a bit of the macabre.”
Larewen arches a brow at Seteth, staring at him sideways. He was right: the services rendered had been un-rendered yesterday. She wasn’t exactly happy about pulling down the bounty, but she needed to. Her eyes narrow slightly and sweep the room for eavesdroppers. “Are you looking for work?” she asked quietly. She certainly could use him. A shoulder lifts. “The macabre is gorgeous. You’ll see the beauty in death, if you hang around here.”
Seteth would certainly see plenty of death hanging around here, in any case — gorgeous or otherwise. He’d taken jobs from far uglier clients than Dragana in far lovelier locales, though. As he had little politeness to spare for Dragana’s view of the grotesque, he ignored that part and focused on the crux of the matter. “I’ll take whatever work I can, provided it doesn’t involve the harming of children or further starving of the downtrodden.” In the past, Seteth had more conditions than these. He wouldn’t have injured an innocent in any way if he could have helped it. His thievery kept to the domain of the lords and barons and dukes and their ilk. With toxins pumped regularly into his veins by enchanted steel cuffs hidden beneath his blue coat, however, Seteth was half the thief he used to be, and so he had been reduced to taking jobs with less than half the morals he once had the privilege of holding dear.
Larewen listens quietly as Seteth speaks, her nose wrinkling slightly. Children weren’t particularly on her list, but the woman had little concern for the downtrodden. Unless, of course, we were speaking of undead. And that’s precisely what comes to mind. “Let’s talk elsewhere. I don’t trust what may or may not be heard within these walls presently. I do have jobs for you that do not cross your limits.” She swept her hand through the air and by the time she reached Seteth, a slip of dark paper appeared. Inside, written in glowing verdant ink, are directions to House Dragana. “Meet me there when you’re ready to talk work.”
Seteth was pleased with this mission’s results: a thousand gold pieces and new opportunities. Killing a vampire wasn’t easy, but the payout had proven greater even than the sum of coins in the pouch he at last fetched from the table between Dragana and himself. “Gladly,” he said. It occurred to Seteth that he had not offered his name. Perhaps that would change when next they met; for now, it was best to remain guarded. With that, the thief lifted the paper with the woman’s directions and exited the Hanging Corpse. He got the feeling this would be only the first of many times he would be ordering suspicious water from the one-eyed man.