Flashback The Lost and Broken

[Daedalus Dagwood]

40th Day of Summer, 507 AV.
2nd Bell, Mid-Night.

Daedalus awoke to the sound of a wood rattling bang followed by clamorous sounds of bodies shifting around his door. "What is going on out there?" Musing to himself as he lifted his head up from his pillow as he concentrated on listening to what was going on. The disturbance seemed to turn into what could only be described as the loud sounds of disbelief. With a loud groan, the human male sat up, letting his legs hang off the side of the bed, his bare feet resting upon the smooth stone floor of his apartment, and lifted his right hand to run it along the top of his head. Hazel golden brown eyes stared at the the wooden door as if he could see though the door.

"It is too late for this." He said to himself as he threw his beds cover away from his body as he stood up. The sleep idled haze that fogged his vision was wiped away as he looked around to find his boots, shirt, weapon, and backpack; all of which were scattered on or around his table that rested in front of his apartments hearth that burned with a low roaring fire that spread a dim light throughout the room. Despite having lived in Sunberth for his entire life, he never once felt bore or surprised by what It could throw at him. After getting completely dressed in his black linen clothing, slipping on his long black wool coat, and adjusting the straps that kept his Rapiers scabbard strapped to his belt. He then moved towards his door.

What he found once he had opened the door caused Daedalus's eyes to widen out of shock. An abstract splatter of scarlet red appeared to be painted along the outside of his door. He looked from his door to the dirty ground where a red trail of blood marked a somber path to a body that laid in the street. Several of his neighbors that lived near him had all awoken just like he did. However, only his door seemed to have been covered in blood. Looking away from the body, he looked towards a bloody path that trailed away from the person in an opposite direction.

He had to weave through a small crowed of curious people who had circled the body. Most of them seemed to walk away after checking to make sure the person wasn't anyone they knew or loved before going back into their homes. Daedalus moved to the front of the crowed where he stood next to the persons side, looking down to see who the person was that turned his door into a morbid painting.

Had it been a dead man; Daedalus would have showed disinterest and anger at having to now clean his door of the blood. However, that was not the case. The person laying down on the ground who's blood was slowly puddling along the dirt road was a young woman with raven black hair with tanned skin with a feminine sturdy build of someone who spent time working on a farm or training to fight. She appeared to be wearing both beige colored cotton shirt and pants. Not rich enough to be anyone of importance, though dirty enough to possibly be a resident of the Tent city.

Her eyelids along with her lips appeared to be removed causing blood to stain down her face as he looked into her eyes. Her arms were shredded as if someone sliced her repeatedly with intent to cause her to bleed out slowly. The most predominate of the wounds were the deep slashes that ran down her chest that turned her shirt into a raggedly ripped blood soaked fabric. Glancing back over his shoulder he could only assume the woman had slammed her body against his door in some attempt to call on anyone for aid.

Despite all of her grievous wounds, what made Daedalus nauseated upon turning to look back to the girl was the fact that she was still alive. Her chest heaved as she struggled to breath. When the woman's lidless eyes focused to set on him it sent an unnerving shiver throughout his body. When the girl began to speak, the words came tumbling out past though the pain of her lip less mouth. The silence of her tone caused Daedalus to crouch down onto one knee to lean in to listen to her words. With her at her death bed he felt a need to listen to what she had to say.

“Fi…find..her" Her brows showed the frightened look in her eyes. “He... Has Mmm..my Daughter.” She stated, hoping that would explain why she was struggling so hard to cling to life. The woman's body went rigid. Her eyes deathly gaze still locked with Daedalus's eyes as he watched the life leave her body.

The sounds of soft muttering followed her death, but no one in the crowed dared to personally interview in the matter. It left Daedalus in a emotionally conflicted position. Her words would haunt him for the rest of his life if he didn't act to save the life a child. While he was apathetic to the plights of many people, he wouldn't be able to live with himself if a little girl would share the same fate as the mother.

His eyes found a small pendent carved out of wood chained to a necklace. With a slight lift of the woman's head, he slipped the necklace off of her head. As he slowly stood up to his full height, Daedalus looked at the pendent that seemed to take the form of tree roots. It seemed special enough of an item to use to find out who the woman was so he looked around to the few people who remained.

"Anyone know who she is?" The question was met with shrugged shoulders, shaken heads, and silence from everyone. It seemed his search would have to start by following the bloody trail that lead away from the body. Maybe even find where she was tortured.

[Daedalus Dagwood]

It was a chilled mid summer night in Sunberth, and Daedalus walked with a cautiously slowly pace as he began to follow the erratic trail of the woman's blood. The trail seemed to alternate between two distinct patterns. The first being a clear thick silken stain of red along ground, while the second was only scattered thin lines of blood along the ground. He avoided stepping on the tails as he followed them. He began to imagine what the woman went through as she crawled to where she inevitably ended up dying. From the rhythm of the pattern he could tell that she fluctuated between crawling along the ground and staggering around while walking on her feet.

The path led Daedalus down a darkened narrow alleyway. The ally itself formed bridges between the narrow spaces between the backs of several decrepit wooden houses. He followed the path until he began to see shapeless blurs through shadows. A beggar laid casually underneath a ragged blanket with his body half propped up against the back of a house that looked like it should be condemned. The man appeared unfazed by the rats which festered the city streets around him, and even less fazed by the bloody hand prints which covered the wall opposite of the man.

Daedalus walked to the wall to look at the bloody hand prints for a moment then turned around to glance at the beggar. He had been silent for most of his stroll until he stood in front of the beggar. Lifting his foot continuously he began to nudge the sleeping beggar. The man smelled of stale ale which caused Daedalus to give up on trying to wake the man since he was clearly drunk. To drunk to be of any use. He continued following the narrow dirt paths between the houses until the tail led him back onto a primary street of travel.

The bloody trail led him right to a singular stand alone wooden cabin. The door was busted wide open as the splinted wood of the door frame looked as if it were kicked in. He stood to the side of the door, hiding behind the frame as he peaked into the cabin. Within the cottage of the apartment the furniture was destroyed and thrown about in all directions. There were two bunks; and only one had been damaged. It was a bunk along an eastern wall where it laid flipped over onto its side while the other bed seemed to be in pristine condition along the western wall. The blankets neatly folded into a freshly made bed. A chair and table laid at the center of the room in broken piles of lumber covered in light traces of blood.

A hearth rested at the furthers center south wall that separated the walls the two bunks occupied. The fires of the hearth seemed to be blaze like a freshly fed fire. It was clear why it was fed as he pulled his head further behind the door frame to only allow a single eye to peer into the building. There was a man dressed in black lurched over a chest that rested at the foot of the clean western bunk.

The man seemed preoccupied with rummaging through the chest as Daedalus entered the cottage. His steps deliberately slow, walking so the heels of his feet set down first to lightly roll his feet slowly and gently towards his toes onto the ground. The crackling fires of the hearth were louder than his footfalls as he managed to make his way behind the person. The man was on his knees looking vigorously for something in the chest.

Daedalus reached forward with his left arm, edging it towards the mans left shoulder. His palm hovered over the mans shoulder as he then looped his arm around the mans neck. His forearm pressing against the persons neck as he then used the bend of his free arm to lock the choke hold into place. "I have a few questions that you are going to answer."

[Daedalus Dagwood]

When people are caught by surprise they tend to react from a place of weakness. The man began to struggle against the arm that slowly started to squeeze at his throat. Both of the mans arms reached up to grip at Daedalus's arm, the mans nails managing to dig at the wool sleeve that he wore as he tried to take what little of a defensive posture he could while on his knees. Daedalus had no idea what the man who he held face looked like since he was behind him, but it was clear the man was human. The man was roughly the same weight as the he was even though the man was a foot and some inches shorter. It gave the man he was holding an extremely plump build.

"Maggots can always be found on festering wounds. This place is a wound, a fresh wound which has only recently been torn open. It is too early for a maggot to be found. So tell me, Maggot, what makes you so special from the others?" There were many factors of the situation which were unknown to Daedalus. It was as if he had drawn up the schematics for the shell of a gadgeteered device, yet lacked the ability to properly understand the inner workings which would allow the physical shell of the device to work.

His question was a steady one that showed only a mild interest in order to get the man to start talking. Even as the man spoke, Daedalus flexed his bicep to choke the man to force his words to struggle out of his mouth. "Ahh...I live here!" His answer made no sense at all to the Metal smith as he looked around the cottage. Two beds. One neatly made. The other flipped over. The flipped over bed had several wooden toys located near it which meant a child slept on the bed. By simple subtraction, he assumed the mother slept on the clean bed which meant there was no space for the man. His answer showed Daedalus the degree to which the 'Maggot'; a name the stranger would be refereed to, wished to collaborate.

His bicep began to tighten around the Maggots neck slowly pressing down against the mans wind pipe. "Wrong answer. Try again." He said to the maggot, showing the man he knew that he was lying. The Maggot made a scream that turned into a gurgling groan. "Okay! OKAY!" The man said while trying to pull Daedalus's arm away from his neck which made the metalsmith only make his hold tighter. "I was walking around when I heard this lady yell like crazy. You know? Being the good guy that I am, I went to wander on down to see what was going on. The screams led me here. I peeked in not too long ago to see this guy with a dagger cutting up the woman who lived here. I think the guy saw me at the door so I ran. I only came back later to see if there was anything of value that..." The Maggot of a thief paused for a moment. "You know, Items that no longer has a 'living owner' to possess them."

There was a darkness in every person which granted people the capacity for great acts of violence. As the Maggot spoke, Daedalus could only imagine the cold promising stare of the woman's lifeless body. Her eyes. Those pitiful promising eyes. "Find her, he has my daughter." The tortured woman's last words echoed across the forefront of his mind as if he had made an unspoken oath to find the missing child. "Tell me about the man."

He kept his left arm around the mans neck, however he let go of his right arm that locked the hold into place. He drew his rapier from his scabbard then replaced his left arm with the blade. Holding the sharpened edge to the Maggots throat."Whoa! No need for weapons mate. I'll tell you what you need to know." Even though the man was complying, Daedalus felt angry at the fact that he just stood aside to watch as the woman was being tortured. The maggot had showed no compassion at all to help. It was that anger which forced him to rake the edge of the rapier against the mans skin enough to draw blood.

"Ah! STOP! ALRIGHT! He, he was one of them Horse'kin of the grasslands. You know? Them horse lovers that get those tattoos when they mate with their horses!" Daedalus's eye quirked as he listened to the man. "A Drykas." He mused to himself aloud. The man thought Daedalus was talking to him so agreed with the statement. "Yeah! Them. Dirty golden hair. Goes shirtless and has a tattoo running down his right arm, chest, and has a burn mark on his face. You can't miss the burns. Looks like he leaned in to close to a torch."

Daedalus took a deep breath. There was a watchful stillness to the room as he had finally found out the killer who he was looking for. "There was a little girl here. Where did he take her?" His question seemed to make the man pause for a moment. "I...I don't know?" There was a slight hint of honesty to the mans tone that caused Daedalus to narrow his eyes. "What do you mean you don't know?"

The man shrugged his shoulders slightly in response. "I ran before I could see him leave. Then circled back. I wanted to get here before anyone else had the chance to take the good stuff." The metalsmith gritted his teeth in agitation which only caused him to etch the rapier's blade further into the mans skin.

"We done here? Can I go?" The man asked curiously to the strange man who held him captive. "Yeah, I am finished with you." Daedalus slowly lowered the blade away from the mans throat which caused the Maggot to smile. It was a sly smirk that if Daedalus saw, would have made him even madder. However, rather than lower the blade he raised it to the level of the mans face. The edge of the rapier ran horizontal to the bridge of the thief's nose.

He began to slice the full length of the blade across the mans face, cutting a deep straight slice that cut into both of the mans eyes. The cut blinded the man instantly. The man started to scream as he began to say the same two words repeatedly. "My eyes! My eyes!" He smirked as he backed away from the blinded man to look around the cottage. By the rubble of wood that previously made up a table and chair, there was a bloody puddle on the floor where the flesh of what looked like lips and eye lids laid.

It must have been where she was tortured. There was a metal poker on the floor used to poke at the firewood within the hearth. He picked it up to place the tip into the hearth fire. As a metal smith, he knew the appropriate amount of time that was required to temper the edge of the fireplace poker until it held a red heat. It took a chime, though soon he held the poker up in his left hand. Daedalus sheathed his rapier then moved over to the Maggot as he rolled around on the ground in pain.

He planted a foot onto the mans chest to keep him stable then crouched down slightly to force the mans jaw open with his right hand. The man resisted. Clamping his mouth shut simply in defiance of what Daedalus was trying to do. The man was Completely unaware of the burning hot poker in his hand. That was until it touched against both of the Maggots lips. The man could not help but open his mouth to scream which aided happened to aid Daedalus in burning the mans tongue with the fire poker. The burning hot tip of the poker scolded the flesh of the mans tongue rending the man somewhat mute. While he could not talk, he could still make unintelligible grunts and yells. "You stood by as she was tortured, as a result you should know Inaction has its consequences." Daedalus tossed the poker aside as he looked around the cottage.

[Daedalus Dagwood]

Something half hidden by a blanket close to the over turned bed caught Daedalus's attention. It was a black leather bound book. He picked it up quickly leaning that it was small in design to allow it to be simply tucked away into a pocket. Once he opened it he began to shift through the contents of its pages. There were words scribbled along the top of a nearly blank page past the books introduction before the first chapter began. it read: 'To ... let these tails... no matter where you are, let this book keep your roots grounded. Love...' The words were barely legible as if written in haste or by someone who was inept at keeping their hand still while working with a quill.

The book was filled with stories revolving around a key theme, Autumn and the harvest. Full of stories about characters that were either farmers or who had grand adventures during the Autumn time. He flipped back to the introduction of the book to read what it had to say aloud. "Bala is the Goddess of Autumn and the harvest. She is the patron goddess of farmers and others who rely on the crops. Daughter of Caiyha who rules over the transition of time between summer and winter. His right hand held the small pocket book of tails related to Bala while he reached into the pouch on his belt to retrieve the necklace.

Daedalus said nothing, but looked from one item to the other in each of his hands. "Worshipers of Bala here in the city? Most likely farmer workers raised in the Agremmon Fields." If he needed any more clues that would help him find the Killer and little girl, he would turn his search there. He slipped both the book, and the necklace into his pouch then looked around to see if anything else would help him find who he was looking for. The newly blind and mute Thief rolled along the floor groaning in pain. The groans pulled Daedalus's attention away from his search which made it clear that nothing was left of interest to observe within the room.

The ground was covered in blood as it was the epicenter of the trails origins. He followed the main bridge of red out past the cottages door way; making sure to shift his foot falls to the sides of the bloody path in an attempt to keep up his previous efforts of not walking directly on top of the bloody trail. That was when he noticed a clear foot print imprinted into the dried blood. They were smaller than his boots which meant they weren't his, and from what he could tell foot print lacked the distinct raised heel of the boot that the blind man had. The footprint led into the opposite direction of the bloody path which caused slight red dots to appear atop of a short stony road.

His golden hazel eyes looked up from the blood trail to see what direction it led to. In the distance he could see a collective of buildings that not only looked condemned, but most likely were hovels of disrepair to any soul that took shelter within them. It led towards the old mining tunnels to the north which meant only one thing. He was heading into the The Wolf's Den.

[Daedalus Dagwood]

receipt-2sm from ledger

Thirty chimes of a bell had past since his departure from the murdered woman's cottage. Along his brisk stroll through the city streets filled with Sunberth's nightlife. He stopped his stroll for several very short interval to allow himself to look for any signs of the man or child he was looking for. An examination of the sky made it certain that no real humbled 'citizen' would be joining him for the night. The gated community was surly locked down leaving only the rough, insane, and poorest of citizens to take advantage of the night.

There were many people roaming the streets as he found himself walking into the district of the city known as the wolf's Den. The increase in hooded figures lurking, angry looking thugs, and homeless ruffians was instantly noticeable shortly after after walking down a dirty path. The streets were covered with the obvious signs of bodily waste, rotting copses of rats, and trash from apple cores to shredded bits of paper. The smell itself of some alleyways were gag inducing, however it was a smell he had grown used to in his life. It was a sad fact to think about, but hygiene was something most people he had come across hardly cared about. It was just a way of life in some parts of the city.

It was due to the dirty streets of the the wolf's den that he lost the trail of blood that he was following.

As he walked, Daedalus's right hand snugly held the handle of his rapier out of necessity. In his mind he knew he would need to use it at some point in time. The only real question was 'when', when would he need to draw the blade? His eyes narrowed onto the faded light of burning pipe. There was a dour faced man with the black beard leaning against the front of a small wooden structure. Save for the smoke flowing from his waterpipe, there was no true sign of a threat from the man.

Daedalus continued on forward until he was directly in front of the dour faced man. From his clothing, the man was clearly homeless as a ripped brown cloak draped over the mans form. "Seen a Drykas come through here lately? Should have had a little girl with him." The man only shook his head in response. The man took a large drag from his pipe then pointed the wooden pipe to the door of the building he leaned against. While curious, Daedalus was cautions as he kept an eye on the man as he went to open the door.

What he found inside made his narrowed gaze grow somewhat wider. There were locations in the Wolf's Den simply known as Safe Houses. Places where the Locals agreed to be neutral ground. Inside simply looked like a typical tavern with no were to order any drinks. There were just tables scattered throughout the room. It looked like several beggars had taken up sleeping against the walls as scrupulously shady looking people each conversed around their tables.

He paused for a moment as he spotted a large orangutan sitting at one seat. Daedalus could only assume the odd animal was a Kelvic. He turned his attention elsewhere as he focused on an elderly woman sitting cross legged on the ground against a far wall. On his way over to her he had to avoid two men fist fighting over a bet made on their card game. It forced him to stick to the wall, nearly gliding his shoulder across the rotting wood until he as clear of their fighting. With a pat of his shoulder he wiped the dust away that had accumulated on his wool coat then moved to stand in front of the woman.

He gripped the backrest of a near chair to slide if over to where he stood to sit down on it. He observed her for a moment, letting his eyes taken in her form. There were several things that he saw, or rather, heard. It was her stomach calling out in signs of hunger as she gripped a wooden cane. His eyes shifted down to see that she was missing a leg. "I have questions." He spoke as he pulled a copper Miza from the pouch on his belt. The old woman's pupils carried an animistic quality to them as he looked into her eyes.

Her yellow eyes held what appeared to be cat like oval pupils except the woman's left eye was almost completely gray from a cataract. "I may have answer." She said with a lingering curiosity as she watched the miza that the metal smith held. "Drykas male, dirty blond hair, face burned. Know where I can find him?" The woman seemed to start purring as he listened to the low hum she made. "Will cost you more than a copper piece." The kelvic woman said with a smile, shifting her long gray hair to drape over her left shoulder.

Daedalus was in no mood to negotiate, likewise most of his mizas were in his backpack which he left at his home. While he didn't have much he still didn't even want to pay her the copper piece. Daedalus leaned back in his chair as he smirked at the woman. "Name your price." He said softly. The woman thought about it for a moment before looking into Daedalus's eyes. "Five gold miza." Her offer caused him to laterally laugh out loud. It wasn't that he found it funny, no. He was just bluffing. Making a fake laugh to try to lower her price. "This information is hardly that Important." The old woman seemed flustered as a red hue grew on her pale cheeks. "You will get two silver pieces or nothing at all. And by the looks of it, you need to eat soon."

When the woman held out her hand Daedalus reached into the pouch to replace the copper pieces he held to replace them with two silver mizas. "I have seen a burned man not to long ago. He wore no clothing other than his tattoos heading toward the Blood Pits carrying a person on his shoulders. A girl I think." Daedalus had not mentioned the girl he was looking for to her which made it clear that it was the man he was looking for. He reached out to drop the two silver mizas into her palm. "Get a simple meal at a tavern on me." Once he stood up he moved the chair back over to where it belonged in front of a table then made his way out of the safe house.