Flashback Spinning a Barbed Web

[Durvekral Wormwood]

Summer 7th 506 AV

Durvekral had finally made his first footfalls inside of the city of Sunberth. He had left Kalinor nearly a full season ago. After Valen's death there was nothing left for him in those caves. No meaningful relationship with his father had survived the years of depressive mood swings and the traumatic event that had pushed Durvekral into action against Valen. There was no real proof that Valen's death was his doing. Yet by a year's passing everyone basically knew what had happened, even if they couldn't surmise how it had occurred. He was hated and feared by his classmates. Even his teachers ignored him and shied away from him. He didn't feel any need to go back to that place. He wasn't learning anything useful there, anyway. Philosophy and history, nothing that was going to help him survive in this cruel, awful world. While everyone merely wished for him to be gone, he had decided that it would be best to fulfill that wish before they gathered the gall to take action.

There was a caravan which was preparing for its voyage to Sylira. Although the traveling party was to serve other functions, the most important of these was to gather victims for The Harvest. Even at such a young age, Durvekral had been allowed to join in the dangerous journey. After all, there wasn't much in the way of a concerned voice to ring out in the name of Durvekral's safety. His payment would be to do the menial, laborious and all-around demeaning chores which would need tendeding to during the trip.

And now, a great deal of time later, Durvekral was finally allowed to pass the Western Hills and set his eyes upon the city. He would have been here weeks ago had it not been for the superstition of the fools with whom he had been traveling. At first, Durvekral had gotten excited about the prospect of being so close. However, a few wretched weaklings, began to mutter gibberish about a haunted bridge. To Durvekral's awful surprise, the entire caravan had decided to re-route its course!

But no matter he had made it. He was here now. Here...in this...putrid smelling city... with its polluted streets, decrepit buildings and... grimy humans.

"What the shyke is this?" Durvekral mentally agonized. "This is what I left home for? This is the city for which I endured those dullards among the caravan? To live among a ...truly... 'dirty' bunch of azos?"

The scene that lay before him was not one of a storybook metropolis with neatly paved streets and people randomly tipping their hats to one another while wishing a "good day." Instead, the cobblestone streets were broken up and missing stones in places. The buildings had a dinginess which invoked the words "old" and "outdated" instead of "historical" or "character."

Durvekral was paranoid enough, as it was, but the looks on the faces of everyone who crossed his path confirmed his suspicions. Written on their faces were the thoughts of treachery, greedy ambition and unchecked wealth. He immediately deduced that everyone in this city had something to hide.

The distasteful look on Durvekral's face deepened as he wandered through the new city. He was not impressed. He was not overwhelmed and despite the fact that he was lost and alone, he was not in any want for kinship among these people. More than looking grumpy, however, Durvekral looked odd. Honestly, was odd enough (suicidally foolish, actually) for an eleven year old to be wandering the streets of Sunberth.

Durvekral looked even more out of place with his long, sharp nails, exposed, dangerous toenails and bulky, meager armor. He didn't look like a turtle, walking through the streets but the armor was designed to put space between his body and the body's around him. It bulged out, circularly, around his body. It protruded about 3 inches in each direction and was reinforced, to 4 inches over the chest and specifically over the spine.

Durvekral looked like he didn't belong here. And he wasn't yet savvy enough to realize just what kind of danger this meant for him. His eye's weren't focused on the real threats. He was too busy glaring, suspiciously at apathetic laborers and old maids.

[Durvekral Wormwood]

With absolutely no knowledge of [even the name of] this city, Durvekral wandered his way over to Riverside Isle Park. It was a curiously, almost unfittingly serene park. Sure, the characters here were no less homely than they had been in the city proper, but the park was nice. Durvekral, feeling mentally exhausted, decided to drop his pack and take a break along one of the reflecting pools in the park.

He began to wonder if the docks attracted the grimy lowlife, of this city, who sought out illegitimate forms work of labor away from the eyes of the local government. The pleasantness of this park made him feel as though he had escaped a bad part of town. Surely, Kalinor must have had dirty sections with the undesirably poor scrounging around, right? It made sense to him that Urkravel wouldn't let him see such a place. He started to feel vaguely more confident that his luck and ultimately his experiences in this city were going to soften.

Unfortunately he did not have a chance to sit for long when 3 thugs approached him. The apparent "leader" was a tall, slender man of about 30 years or so. He wore a tilted, brown ascot cap and a poorly grown, spotty mustache. He was surrounded by a shorter, wider thug wielding chain wrapped around both fists. He appeared to be the same age. On the leader's left side was a younger looking thug with shaved hair. Durv guessed that this one was about 19 years old and that the downcast, intimidating frown that he wore was a mainstay of his appearance and personality. The frown did not convey a pathetic sadness, nor was it meant to. It instead conveyed the appropriate terror to be found from a hopeless, angry individual with his back against the wall.

"Look at the armadillo, over here..." the leader jibed at Durvekral's ungainly armor. "Is this kid kidding us?" He meanly laughed.

Trying his best, not to appear afraid, Durvekral slapped on a facial expression of firm defiance. He meant to convey strength and a willingness to fight. What he instead conveyed was his complete sense of disrespect and disgust for this human city.

The thugs immediately recognized this. They didn't connect to his attempt to unify himself with their strength and ruthlessness. They connected to his sense of elitism and judgement.

The leader was quiet but allowed the youngest of them to step forward and speak. "You have no idea where you are, you stupid little petch." His wild, savage, malevolent smile was absolutely horrifying. All of this man's lack of restraint, all of his hopelessness and his willingness to destroy was flashed in those crooked, yellow teeth. "You're going to die tonight. You won't make it another hour in this city."

With that pleasant thought, they felt satisfied to leave him, fully confident in the idea that the ignorant little child truly would end up dead by nightfall. There was no reason to harass him any further, why take the time to get their hands dirty when Sunberth, itself would tear this child from limb to limb.

Durvekral immediately grabbed his pack and continued to search for a place to get some rest. Somehow, he was unable to enjoy the park for much longer.

[Durvekral Wormwood]

By the time dusk had set, Durvekral had wandered into a loud, bustling, crowded environment. This was the Seaside Market. Up and down these rows of tables and carts, all sorts of venders squawked on about their various goods.

Durvekral was astonished. He had been wandering all day and he had not found a "good" part of town. This was the entire city! It appeared that the whole city was some kind of lively ruin with murderers and bullies wandering unchecked. He hadn't seen one hint the presence of any government. He had to settle down somewhere and figure out how he was going to escape this awful, awful city.

Durvekral didn't bother to look at anyone. He didn't even make eye contact, he simply wanted to make his way through the crowds and avoid being jostled. He hit some sort of a road block half way through his journey across the market. In truth, it was a large group of people crowded around one single display. A man was peddling all sorts of toys and fancy gadgetry. Though no one really trusted the reputability of his products, nor did they consider buying anything but he had managed to catch their collective interest. He was putting on a good show.

Durvekral, however, could care less. He simply wanted to find his way to some sort of inn and have a tiny bit of quiet for once. The problem was that he was positively unable to move forward. The wall of flesh and humanity did not budge. He knew better than to force his way through but the problem was that they way back was effectively sealed. He was stranded here in this shifting crowd of adult humans.

Four teenagers, loitering outside of the Pig's Foot Tavern, had noticed the skittish, young Symenestran. They lacked any recognizable (not that Durvekral would have recognized anyway) gang symbols but they each wore desperate grins. It was clear that they wanted to do whatever it would take to catch the attention of one of the Sunberth gangs and make their way into initiation.

"You'h look lahk yer about ta piss yaself," A shorter, red haired male, with a broken nose and a twisted smile, walked toward him out.

"Ay, Denlin," this voice belonged to a thin girl with unwashed, greasy, faded brown hair. Her skin had a sheen which was more indicative of street grime than of attention-grabbing makeup. She had been leaning, one foot on the ground, against a wooden post before following the first teenager. "Ah heard'dere bones'ull shatter lahk'a house'a cards." Her laugh was harsh and mean spirited. It almost served as an insult all its own.

The other two teenagers were similarly scrawny, both had jet black hair under ripped and patched caps. The four of them started to crowd around him. They gathered in a menacing, silently threatening sort of way. Their advance forced him backwards, back against the entertained crowd.

"Stay back! What do you want!" Durvekral tried to sound confident and dangerous but it was hopeless.

"Do thuh spidahs make good slaves?" One of the black haired misfits asked. "Or are day too delicate. If a use can be made for um, we could probably make some coin, he'ah."

"Stay back, I'm warning you!" In a futile attempt at threatening them, Durvekral flashed his claws. "I'll cut through you like moist dough!" He managed to speak through stutters.

"Well, he does haff dose claws, the last boy remarked. "Is it really worth'a trouble?"

"Claws?" The brunette scoffed. "Shyke, well we got claws!" With a sly, plotting smile, she pulled out a 5 inch switchblade while 2 of the 3 boys did the same.

"No!" Durvekral shouted with a sudden sense of panic. "Okay." In the quickness of the moment he offered, himself, a mental reassurance. "I've killed before and I can do it again. These azos would have been nothing against Valen anyway...

Unfortunately, his confidence was shaken by an unexpected shove from a combatant to his left side. He rapidly whipped his body around and pounced upon....

...A lady who had bumped into him while carrying a basket of fish. She shrieked in terror as he lept upon her like a predatory cat taking down its prey.

"Tha' filtthee spider is attackin'er!" the red-headed scoundrel called out.

Before he could do too much damage, a daggerhand thug was upon him. He saw an adult lift him up and then felt a strong but broad contact over either side of the base of his neck. His consciousness started to fade until he had completely blacked out. That was the last event that Durvekral would ever remember from that night.

[Durvekral Wormwood]

When Duvekral awoke, he was in a dark, dirty room. The walls were old stones which looked like they had literally never been cleaned. Rust lined every inch of metal that comprised the iron gate in front of him. The room stunk mostly of dingy mildew but the smell of human waste, obviously never acknowledged, muscled its way alongside the mildew and a general lack of hygiene amidst this combination of awful smells which had assaulted Durvekral's nostrils.

There was a tiny bit of light filtering through a window far, far, down a hallway. There were no screams to be heard in this dungeon but there were moans. There didn't seem to be enough energy, circulating around, for a scream. Even after he had gotten beyond the initial grogginess of having just woken up, Durvekral somehow felt too drowsy to take much action. The human noises that he heard were full of fear and despair but they were pained and suffered moans, not terrified shouts.

He now noticed that he shared his cell with another. His cellmate was a balding man who looked to be in his early forties. His brown hair wrapped around the sides of his head and approached the top but was balding right near the crown. He too had a look of bored sadness on his face. The apathy in his eyes bore the knowledge that he was going to die in here but that he had apparently been in here long enough that the emotional shock was over. He appeared to have a long time of suffering left to do in this cell before the end would come. Durvekral could not get the man to speak or even acknowledge his presence. He didn't care that there was another person in his cell and he didn't care that this person was a Symenestran child.

It was about an hour or two before a daggerhand thug approached to open the iron gate. This was Teygar, the man who Robern had established as a warden to manage the prisoners.

"Ah, here he is, the little bug..." the voice was utterly malicious and the inherent intimidation within it made Durvekral's spine tingle. Part of his fear was born from the fact that from what he'd seen of this city, there was no masquerade in the thug's intentions. They would have no qualms about killing the Symenestra immediately. It was an interesting revelation. Durvekral had been taught, in school, about how the prideful humans looked down on the races which were physically different from themselves. But he had also been taught that they prided themselves as a civil, dignified bunch. This was a special type of evil which advertised to the world an oasis of politeness but was in truth a den of hatred and murder.

Durvekral looked up to see who owned such a terrible, reckless voice. He found, in his heart, utter despair upon seeing a man who was, in no way, less malicious than anyone else whom he had met the last two days. The typically cynical and jaded child began to show the signs of his woefully young age. This was it, this horrible man was going to kill him. He started to quiver and his eyes welled up with tears.

"Look on the bright side...you survived longer than I predicted... The sadistic man decided to make his last few moments particularly unpleasant with a few mocking remarks. "You filthy little spider, you don't really think that you, a child, is going to walk into the city of Robin Daggerhand, assault one of his city patrons and live to tell about it, do you?"

Durvekral was hardly paying attention, he was too busy bawling about the coming end to his unfortunately short (and decidedly unhappy) life.

"I'll tell ya what," the mean-spirited warden offered his proposition believing that there was no way that Durvekral could do it. It was just another mocking insult. "I might consider letting you live if you kill this guy right n~"

A spark ignited in Durvekral's mind. It occurred as soon as the man uttered the word "live." There was a way out. There was a chance to survive this. Durvekral didn't second guess himself. He didn't think twice about it. He didn't consider this man's life or his family. He didn't allow compassion one moment to completely ruin his shot at survival.

He launched himself onto the man began digging those newly formed nails into the main's face and chest. Not ready for the sudden assault the man howled out in a combination of terror and awful, excruciating pain as dozens and dozens of tear marks formed through his skin.

Teygar was certainly surprised but not surprised into action. The man whom Durvekral was currently assaulting was some "piece of trash" who had tried to rat out important Daggerhand information to the Night Eyes, a crime that was especially loathesome in the ever-loyal Teygar's mind. This man's life was forfeit anyway, he had been simply rotting down here for the last few years. Teygar did little more than smile and marvel at how quickly the prisoner, though still alive, had been turned into a shiny red mess.

""Alright, alright, you're completely screwing it up. Get him in the throat already and end this!"

Doing as he was told, Durvekral finally considered a slit to the man's throat, mercifully putting an end to the unbelievable suffering.

After that, the warden slammed the door shut and walked off without informing Durvekral of his new fate. "He said that I was screwing it up..." This was all that Durvekral could think about. He wasn't considering the repercussions of what he had just done and he sure as shyke didn't feel any regret at just having carved a man to death. While Durvekral cried in his cell, wondering whether he would live or die, Teygar wandered upward and towards the mansion proper thinking "Good petch tha' kid's gah'some gall. I'll hafta tell Sarlune about this."

[Durvekral Wormwood]

Summer 9th 506AV

Rodrin Sarlune was a high ranking Daggerhand leader whom the thug routinely reported to. Sarlune was an introspective but intelligent man. He immediately recognized the potential of such a disturbed psyche. The Daggerhands were already excellent at showing force and defending their territory. A child this psychologically shattered could be turned into a powerful killer from behind the shadows. Cloak and dagger wasn't the way the street gang typically operated, the idea filled a need. It was the only way. Durvekral would have to be an assassin for the Daggerhands if he was to survive. His weak, glass-like Symenestran bones weren't good for anything else, afterall.

He had been informed of the prisoner and of the event which took place in the cell, about an hour after it had occurred. An ever busy man, Sarlune didn't prioritize it over his more pressing matters. He was able to free up time to visit the Symenestran a few days later. The visit was quick. He wanted to address the prisoner himself, but more time for introductions and clarification would come later. For now, he just wanted to get the kid out of the cell and upstairs in the mansion.

Durvekral was going stir-crazy by the time Sarlune had finally decided to come and fetch him. He spent half of the time on the cusp of boredom-driven insane. For the rest of his time in the cell he was filled with paralyzing terror. He had only gotten about 3 interrupted hours of sleep each night. When Sarlune finally looked upon him, Durvekral looked less like a killer and more like a starved alley cat. A man of lesser contemplation would have abandoned the idea and simply had him executed. Luckily for Durvekral, Sarlune understood the physical conditions under which the prisoner was being observed.

"So," Sarlune spoke in a deep, powerful voice. Sarlune sounded dangerous too but, for the first time since the child had arrived in Sunberth, it sounded like a different kind of dangerous. Sarlune wasn't dangerous because he was reckless. He wasn't dangerous because he had nothing to lose. No, this was a little less chaotic, which was less threatening in its own right, but far more potent. Sarlune was terrifying because he seemed immediately intelligent while remaining as ruthless as anyone in the city. "As you may or may not have figured out, we have a career for you, here."

[Limey]

Skill and Lore Rewards Skills Lore Observation 3 Sunberth: Dirty And Infested With Apes Unarmed 2 Lore: Riverside Isle Park Mistaken Appearences The City Will Kill You From Bad To Worse The Apathy Of Lifers Go For The Throat Taygar: Pitiless Jailer Sarlune: Recognizing Potential Additional Notes : Not really much I could give you for "Acting" here, but most else was plausible. I liked how you REALLY didn't take it easy on Durval in this one, really showed how brutally unforgiving Sunberth can be. One thing, though: don't run too fast into a job offer from the Daggerhands, and be careful when describing or roleplaying their NPCs. Make sure you take your recruitment slow and steady, and you'll be fine. Any questions or queries, please PM me.