18+ Private ✪ Finweald With All Intent

[Catherine Haust]

The room reeked of iron. A trail of blood stretching across the floor in an almost meticulous line before splashes crossed the wall and ceiling. Pieces of flesh decorated the ground that were so disfigured it was hard to tell what exactly they were anymore. She remained stonefaced as the pair of squires to her left stood amidst the carnage in disbelief, handkerchiefs over their mouths. They were already starting turn green at this point. She sighed and waved her hand, dismissing them from the room so they could get some air. To her left, a grim-faced man in dark clothes crossed his good arm behind his back and turned to her.

"The third this month."

She nodded, taking in the ritualistic carnage again to try to get a sense of what the bastard that did this was thinking. Each scene was pretty much the same, which lead to her theory of a ritualistic killer. Unfortunately, her experience was more in the line of an enforcer rather than an investigator which made it hard to parse out the finer details. Still, the Lion's Pride had wanted someone on the scene until a proper investigator arrived and given how bad this was becoming they were sending one of the best. More importantly, the church of Endra was also taking a very serious approach to this situation so she had even more reason to be here.

"What does the church have to say?" The man pressed.

"Given the severity, the Courts have decided to get directly involved. So I will be here as both a representative of the Courts and of the Lion's Pride, the Law Presides."

He inclined his head, "The Law Presides."

She turned away from the Lander and made her way to the door leading back out to the entrance of the small shop that, likely, had once been owned by the bits of meat on the floor. He cleared his throat behind her and fixed her with a queasy gaze.

"How do you do it?"

She looked over her shoulder and frowned.

"I've seen worse."

She ignored the pained shake of his head and stepped out into the shop front where the two squires were on the floor, heads between their knees. She crossed her arms and glanced toward the door where a dark shape was approaching. Her expression firmed up and she cleared her throat.

"On your feet, Lions. The investigator is here. Show some spine."

They looked up at her despondently but nodded, forcing themselves to stand at attention as the door opened. Catherine drew herself to attention and placed her hand on her sword and her fist to her chest. This person was supposed to be an experienced specialist in murders and someone of importance to the Lion's Pride. Someone like that demanded a proper greeting so she waited until they were acknowledged before introducing herself.

"Knight of the Lions Pride and Inquisitor of the Church of Endra, Catherine Haust. Accompanied by Squires Martin and Leo, Ma'am."

@Madison Freebird

 

[Madison Mortiere]

When it comes to matters of death, go fetch the one who looks like death herself.

That's what this has all turned into, right? My little niche within the Lions Pride? There's been another murder. Call the Sheriff. Yeah, the one that paints her face like she's fresh from the grave. She can slap these landers awake long enough to get a few important details out of them like "hey, who killed you?" and "where'd you bury the wife's inheritance?" before sending them on their merry way to Urukhan.

Hey, I'm not complaining. It's a useful skill set to have! A pile of masteries used in a fashion that, apparently, nobody else has really thought about tapping into like this--not even my mentor, Lucia; hidden away in her city of undead, tinkering away at gods-know-what nowadays.

It's just that I'm not sure when they say "the one who looks like death herself", if they're complimenting my aesthetic or taking a little dig at the hot fucking mess beneath it.

As I walked the streets, approaching the storefront where today's work was to be done, I flicked open my UI and reviewed the briefing I had been sent. Apparently, what took place inside was gruesome bordering on excessive and unnecessary. Three others from the Pride were already there to keep order and cordon off the site. And without any witnesses (living, anyway), we had our work cut out for us.

The remaining few busybodies and stragglers who already hadn't been shooed away took off as soon as I stepped up to the front door. I could hear the voices murmuring inside. Sense the sheer amount of death that took place just beyond them.

My left hand twitches. The pitch black shadows that envelope it, the contract between myself and Synra, hums softly with an energy only present where the spirits of the violently slain still linger.

And I push open the door.

----------------------------

I don't bother to return the salute. The horrible stench filling the room has already soured my mood. "Save the decorum for the Lord Commander." I do offer each of them a nod, though. "Martin. Leo." And I turn to the last one, clad in armor far fancier than the others. "Catherine."

A knight *and* an inquisitor. How industrious we must be! Maybe I'll cut out the necromancer references today, lest we accidentally enable a little PvP!

"I'm Madison Freebird. Knight of the Pride, here to help you look into..." I made some motions towards no point within the room in particular. Honestly; where would we even begin? This store had been turned into an absolute slaughterhouse.

Breathing through my mouth instead of my nose didn't help. I could taste the iron in the air. "Catherine, do we know anything at all yet? Any witnesses come forth with information?"

@Catherine Haust

 

[Catherine Haust]

The two squires accompanying Catherine winced visibly when the investigator who introduced herself as Madison Freebird dispensed with the formalities with one quick statement. They turned their heads slowly towards Catherine, expecting her to make some sort of terse or stringent comment. She'd hammered compliance to formalities into them very quickly after their first encounter. However, to their surprise, Catherine visibly relaxed. She nodded brusquely and cleared her throat.

"At ease boys."

She let her arms rest and even relaxed a hand on her hip as she gestured to the door to the room behind them. While there was little in the way of gore in the storefront besides a few splotches of blood on the floor, likely the initial struggle, the smell carried forward relentlessly. Catherine didn't seem fazed but the two young men were becoming greener and greener as they tried to endure it. Knowing it would be cruel to make the two of them stick around any longer and having permission to dispense with formalities from the more senior Knight, she nodded to them.

"Go ahead and secure the door outside you two."

They brightened and hurried to comply, leaving the foul smelling place behind them. It was after the distracting pair had left that she finally turned to Madison with a still expression before going down the information that had already been gathered.

"As with the other two this month, the imagry is the same as are the finer details that are confidential right now. Unlike the other two before, there was one minor difference. In the past two events the killer used some manner of silencing magic to maintain his privacy. In this case he was interrupted; the victim's son attempted to enter through the rear door and broke the framework of the silencing magic-allowing sound to escape. The neighbors heard the screaming before the sound cut out abruptly after that."

She said it all clinically, keeping her tone steady, even though her lips twitched and her fingers tensed. She let out a sigh.

"Thankfully, the boy is alright, magic was used to put him to sleep, probably by the killer, who left him behind unharmed for some reason. He's unfortunately too traumatized by what he saw to provide any concrete information."

She paused and grimaced, finally a bit of anger showing.

"The city guard arrived just minutes before the local inspector and they interrogated the poor thing. I have a priest caring for him right now."

She cleared her throat and returned to the topic at hand.

"At any rate, as before, viscera and clumps of flesh have been left in the four cardinal directions within the room as well as a clean linear trail of blood down the center. The rest of the remains are unaccounted for as well and no one saw a disposal despite the neighbors coming out to see what was happening after the noise died down. I doubt they saw nothing, though, and I suspect that one of them saw the killer leave but is not coming forward."

She completed her brusque report with a frown before gesturing to the door with an inclination of her head.

"Shall we?"

@Madison Freebird

 

[Madison Mortiere]

Are we one hundred percent sure that it was only one victim here? Because my first thought slipping through the doorway and entering the back room was that enough carnage took place that there could have been a dozen more, and I was going to have a hell of a time putting everyone back together. Furniture messily dyed with splashes of ichor and shoved into the corners, broken glassware and pottery strewn about the place where the kill and their victim struggled before the deed had been done. And, of course, the centerpiece--

The smell was awful enough in the front of the store. But this was enough for me to produce a perfumed handkerchief from a pocket within my coat and cover my nose.

Don't judge. Just because I deal with death doesn't mean I have to enjoy every aspect of the work. Besides--ghosts? Revenants? Bones? Most of those are quite lacking in offensive odors.

"Poor kid, walking in on a murder," I muttered, mostly to myself. "Strange that whoever did this would leave him alive, though."

I walked around the horrible display left for us in the middle of the room. Four piles of unidentifiable meat placed like the points of a compass, a line of blood crossing between them. Not enough to constitute a whole corpse; but like @Catherine Haust said, the rest hadn't been found yet. And to be honest; I don't think we ever will.

"You mentioned something about a silence spell? How talented in the arts are you? Are you able to discern what kind of magic still lingers here? Arcane, divine, maybe even demonic?" Not really my forte; I can spit bullets faster than venom on most days.

I looked back at down at the piles of meat and blood. The handkerchief was doing its best, but even that wasn't enough to keep my eyes from watering and threatening to ruin my perfect makeup job. "This definitely feels like some sort of ritual killing. One performed with a purpose, with a very specific victim in mind. That's the only reason I can think as to why this kid was only put to sleep instead of put under completely." I did some quick mental calculations. Generally speaking, I need a little more to work with if I'm going to ply my very specific, very useful craft. "Thankfully, we shouldn't have to interrupt his grieving to ask questions. I may be able to get some answers directly from the source."

Paladins always give me the creeps. What with their strict, single-minded, unbreakable adherence to silly little things like (ew) dogma and (bigger ew) morality and (biggest ew) laws. But it's better that I ask anyway.

I arched an eyebrow Catherine's way. "You're not going to run a sword through me and call me a defiler and shit if I work a little necromancy, right? Because I can call his man's soul back for a short period and we can speak with it. It... usually helps if there's, uh... More. Left behind to bind it to. The whole body would've helped, even if we had to sweep it up into a little pile of meat and bone. But I think we have enough time to ask what we need and get some leads before I have to release them."

 

[Catherine Haust]

Catherine stood at the edge of the room, staying out of Madison's way. Her eyes fixed on the woman's back as she gazed about and took in the desolate scene. Catherine turned her emerald-green eyes on the viscera scattered about and kept her expression unbroken, her arms behind her back. She glanced towards some of the markings on the ground and then back up at Madison, keeping her expression stiff and professional. She held out both her hands palm up and closed her eyes when the investigator questioned her.

"Goddess of Law, turn your blind gaze upon this ruination, castigate the forces present and bring them to the surface. Reveal the truth to your servant, so that she may bring the wrath of the law upon them..."

With that, a muted-gray-gold glow washed off of Catherine's body, rippling off of her and spreading throughout the room. The moment they touched a few of the more isolated blood-splatters, dark, sickly looking clouds began to rise, coiling and crackling as if they were being forced to surface. They resisted for a moment before being forced into full visibility. There was a pattern to them, as if they had at one time been a kind of arcane magic rather than the twisted mockery they saw.

"Corrupted Arcane Magic, that would identify the perpetrator as at the very least being some manner of academic."

She pulled away from her explanation when Madison offered a suggestion, getting answers from the source. Ah. So the information she'd been given about the investigator was true. Of course it was, she trusted her superiors, but that didn't mean it wasn't hard to believe. Still, she turned her unblinking gaze on Madison as the woman continued to speak. Her lip twitched and she almost smiled in reaction to her commentary.

"I daresay I wouldn't be fast enough, even if it were justified. You have quite a reputation." She chuckled, "I was informed that you practice spiritual magic and not heretical animancy so I have no issues with your practice. So long as your work is sanctioned and doesn't breach any laws, you have nothing to fear from me. I only ask that we keep it brief as to not cause undue suffering to the poor man's soul. I have held off on performing a repose rite for this purpose, after all."

Catherine was a dogmatic legal absolutist, morality wasn't even on her radar when it came to rules. While others would frantically lump spiritual magic with more abhorrent forms of magic, there were no actual laws against it. Especially in Astorea. So to her, if there was nothing saying they couldn't do it, that of course meant that they were than authorized to do it. They had to catch this person, after all, and if a few of the more squeamish priests got a bit frazzled in the process. It was no issue to her.

@Madison Freebird