Saithorthepyro

Chapter 33 -Sedation

I stumbled through the Infernal Quarter bleeding more than just blood.

The constructed illusion I’d woven around myself was fading fast, getting pumped out at about the same rate as I actually bled.

I’d stopped to change the illusion to an Infernal man of above-average height and a green shade of skin, and to bandage my wounds as best I could in a few brief moments. Blood still dripped with each passing moment as I walked. The cloth I’d ripped off to bind them already soaked...

Chapter 32 - A Hole in the Sky, A Way Out

Simultaneously feeling internal relief while puppeteering my face for a subtle expression of fear was quite the trick.

I spat and cursed their names and made a lunge for Voltar that saw me clubbed to the ground with the butts of muskets. It wasn’t an inspired performance, but I might as well do all I could to mask the collusion between me and Voltar. They didn’t want me dead so I could add some flourishes, knowing the worst I’d get would be broken bones.

I avoided that, exce...

Chapter 31 - The Trial Farce

The carriage jolted as it turned corners, the sudden movement throwing me off balance.

Normally I’d be able to tell it was coming and brace myself, even at the speeds we were traveling. Normally.

My head hit the wood of the carriage’s side, cushioned only by the burlap sack that had been shoved over my head. Dull pain, matched by the duller pain still throbbing in my empty eye socket. The mixtures they’d given me to mitigate the pain were fading fast, as was their nature. An...

Chapter 30 - Three possible exits

Just as a note, the previous chapter did not include the original last line for reasons I’m unable to determine. I’ve since edited it in, but we’ll also be opening this chapter on the same line for anyone who read it before I made that edit. Apologies for the misunderstanding.

I grinned as they halted outside of easy lunging distance. “Mr. Voltar, Mr. Dawes. A pleasure to see you both!”

“A pleasure to see you again, Miss Falara,” the detective replied cheeri...

Chapter 29 - An Eye of Fire

Well, this was a conundrum. 

My metal-thread-wearing intruder was moving into the warehouse with a lantern in hand. Given the organization of the shelves from the route he was taking, I could either leave now or stay and see if I could get some answers out of him.

I crept around the corner, following behind him, far enough back that a sudden turnaround wouldn’t immediately spot me. Unfortunately, it meant I couldn’t make out many details about him, not helped by him holdi...

Chapter 28 - Trapdoors and stuffed Leechs

It was never advisable to walk the docks of Garretsville at night.

This district had started well outside the city’s limits, a thousand years ago, but as the city had grown it had swallowed the port town. It’d kept its independent spirit thought, which as time went on meant it’d become a favorite for smugglers.

The docks here were for bulk goods, where you’d unload and load the largest shipments, which meant plenty of warehouses. Over time, that also meant it became a plac...

Chapter 27 - Rooftop Conversation

It was never easy to walk the rooftops. It meant was walking across one roof, climbing down, and then finding a way onto the next roof. Heavens and Hells help you if that next roof had tiles or anything else that could break and make noise. When people were walking effortlessly across roofs, it usually meant magic was involved, magic that cost money.

To add to the complications, it had been years since I’d done this, and it had been in a completely different body.

Not helping wa...

Chapter 26 - Two Masks, One Conversation

It didn’t take long for Liu Xang to talk the nurses into letting me visit with him. Being a distant descendant of a Companion of the Shining Princess came with some perks, even after this many generations removed. The name had the weight to get the foot in the door, and both politeness and being human were enough to carry him into convincing the nurses I was actually Katheryn Falara.

I waited outside in the hall for his visit to conclude, doing my best to ignore the quiet sounds of hi...

Chapter 25 - Possessed are no longer allowed in the Hospital

I needed to come back here and steal this bed.

My apartment’s bed had hardly been the worst place I’d slept, indeed an improvement over the gutter, the street, or even coffin beds, all of which I’d endured over my years in the Quarter. But this bed was to my apartment’s bed what the apartment’s bed had been to the coffin bed. It even had feathers in the mattress!

My body felt like giving into the temptation to rest a few minutes more, but I’d slept long enough. I didn�...

Chapter 24 - The Poor Rats

“No,” I whispered, turning away from the sight. My tongue slipped out unconsciously, licking some of the arterial spray off of my face. I bit down into it, holding it in place before it could slip inside. I winced, tasting copper as my teeth sank in to hold the possessed appendage in place.

How much do you insist on mutilating yourself to avoid every bit of temptation, girl? You’ve become even more boring since putting me to sleep.

I couldn’t resp...

Chapter 23 - Top Hats are not Friends

It took far too much time to return to the Infernal Quarter. I hadn’t asked about a carriage to take me back, simply retrieved my belongings and started my journey on foot. Going on foot meant a long trip hoping no one paid too much attention to me or felt tempted to try and steal the small bag of my belongings slung across my back. Most days, that would just be a case of not wanting to be gawked at, but today, the memory of those marchers still fresh in my mind? I just wanted to make it to...

Chapter 22 - The perfectly wrong way to drink tea

After I’d returned from her heir and delivered my report, Lady Karsin insisted I stay for at least a cup of tea, which I didn’t turn down. After all the chaos of today, it was barely afternoon. A moment to relax seemed well deserved.

Unfortunately, it seemed one of the topics of conversation had been myself.

“From what Lord Montague was telling me, your entire apartment is a loss?” Lady Karsin asked me.

“Yes, although I’m hoping his father’s payment will make u...

Chapter 21 - A Seemingly Pointless Visit

The walk through the interior gardens of the estate was enjoyable, if brief. Lady Karsin’s servants took us through the gate and guided us along a path towards the back of the estate, trees and bushes of varying kinds forming a wall blocking sight from the main entrance.

I wondered how many visitors to the estates realized that the garden’s layout kept certain parts well out of sight.

“You’ve been to the gardens before?” Montague asked as we walked behind the servant. 2024-06-17 16:00:10 +0000 UTC View Post

Chapter 20 - Careful Timing Required

They’d had a carriage waiting for me, which had drawn enough onlookers pulling out onto the street had been an issue. 

“I’m going to have no peace for the next few months, perhaps even years,” I observed as the carriage tried to make its way through the district. “You’re aware there’s a march of…protestors going through the district?”

Protestors was the diplomatic term. I didn’t know how anyone else in the carriage may react to my thoughts on the marchers....

Chapter 19 - Sword at a noble's throat

The stairs creaked beneath my feet, some of them shifting under my weight. The half-hearted thought of seeing these fixed rose up again. There was no real chance of them ever being fixed. I didn’t have the time or money, the landlady could not care less about maintenance, and my fellow tenants didn’t consider it something to fret over. The moment people’s hooves or feet started going through boards, then we might collectively do something.

Some of my neighbors gathered in the hall...

Chapter 18 - Logs for a Fire

Kalasyp was going to be furious.

It’s all that echoed in my mind as I walked the street. It shouldn’t. On the list of things that had gone wrong, not fulfilling my word to Kalasyp was far, far down.

Could he blame me? It’s not like I’d planned this morning to be banned from the guild and the underground settlements they controlled. I couldn’t have even guessed the guildhall meeting would have happened.

Helvek had been very polite but very insistent about me immedia...

Chapter 17 - Cost of a buried past

I didn’t try running. Helvek had spotted me already and made swift progress to where I stood. All running would do is delay this and antagonize him and Almaseck. Not something I could afford to do, nor want to do. No matter how much this delayed me, I was on decent terms with both of them.

As Helvek neared I could make out more details. He still had his tusks polished, and the guild sigil tattooed right underneath his left eye. It seemed a little silly, but I used to polish my horns. ...

Chapter 16 - Weave a Web

All around me, the dwarf settlement extended up and down along the cavern's walls.

I’d been in a few dwarf-built settlements underground before and each tended to differ depending on where they’d carved out their settlements. When you have an existing natural cavern like here? They took the route that required the least work.

Korvath had been built in what could best be described as an underground canyon, so the dwarves had taken to building their home in the walls, dwellings...

Chapter 15 - What lays underneath

I really needed to stop going into dark places.

I did have a lamp with me this time, a candle burning at the center and providing some light. Not as much as I’d prefer. The darkness ahead shifted as I pushed forward, shadows dancing along the tunnel walls.

I walked along a rough stone path, maneuvering carefully in a tunnel not much larger than I was. I should be grateful the dwarves who’d carved out this rectangular passageway had bothered to make it big enough for folks my s...

Chapter 14 - Never a moment's rest

I resisted the urge to curse. Not only would it not do anything, but the assortment of thugs before me and Tolman might think it referred to them.

It did, but provoking them wouldn’t do any good.

Five people stood outside the entrance, maybe a dozen feet away. Most of them wouldn’t look out of place on the street, dressed like vagrants, bearing the stained teeth of those addicted to one substance or another. Of course, most vagrants didn’t stand in a loose line outside the e...

Chapter 13 - The Vanishing Act

My testing closet lay utterly empty except for a small pile of dockworkers' clothes. I stared down at them. I….the door had been locked. I leaned down, lifting the clothes up, searching through them as if I could find them hiding among them. The door had been locked!

I found nothing besides the piece of paper, which had three words scrawled across it: Out For Lunch.

The rest of the room was bare, which wasn’t strange. You could see the marks on the stone floor from me dragging...

Chapter 12 - The Art of Street-fighting Urchins

Silence reigned as those words left my lips. I looked at Voltar, but his expression still refused to shift.

The poison was called Angel’s Sorrow for a reason. It didn’t need to be an angel, but it required a divine creature to shed its tears. The concentrated sorrow of such an entity was powerful enough to hurt the living through exposure, to touch the mind much in the same way a visitation from a divine creature would.

For people or creatures originating from the profane like...

Chapter 11: Never Consume Unfamiliar Substances

“Shit,” was Zarrow’s only remark. His eyes flitted towards the doorway, trying to find a way out without touching Voltar.

The detective watched in mild amusement as my patient tried to move as far away as the chair would allow. I had no idea where these two had crossed paths, but Zarrow clearly better appreciated the danger Voltar presented than most did. The detective’s thin frame resembled a scarecrow, only padded out by the thickness of his greatcoat, and his face wasn’t pa...

Chapter 10 - The Unforgivable Crime of Ruined Tea

The following day began with tea.

I stared at my small teapot, focusing on counting the seconds. It helped distract me from the pounding also on the inside of my head.

I’d come here after waiting outside my lab for half an hour. Making sure that the intruder didn’t just have a key to all my locks, or the tools to pick it, or even just a weapon to work his way through eventually had taken out a chunk of my night.

They deserved their freedom if they’d been patient enough...