A Knot in the Loom, Chapter 1
There will be an old man sitting in a rocking chair,
fishing over the side of the northern Pulley Car bridge
between the Nexus and Nighthammer districts.
Arrive with the daybreak car, no sooner, no later.
Do not speak to the man until he lights his pipe.
You have until the next Pulley Car passes.
Do not be late.
Come alone.
Suggested Music: Spirited Away OST - Kaonashi
Realm Year 768, The 11th of Descending Wood
Voresyl stepped off the moving Pulley Car as it first entered the bridge from The Nexus District to The Nighthammer district. It was crowded this early in the morning with the night’s workers making their way home or to the bars to spend the silver they’d just earned. On the car’s return it would be bringing in the fresh workforce to The Nexus District for another busy day in the never ending bustle of The City of Nexus.
Vorseyl stepped off the tracks that the car ran on, a casual glance to the pulleys up above that pulled the cars along their designated tracks. As he stepped onto the catwalk beside the rail way he headed west to the high point of the bridge. As he approached he saw exactly what he was expecting to see. A small, crouched over old man was rocking gently in an old oak rocking chair with a bamboo fishing pole hung off the edge lazily. Surprisingly he was the only fishermen with that idea this morning, it was common to see fishermen flock to the shores of the rivers and coastline of Nexus before the sun rose. Today it was only this man.
As he grew closer he noticed that the man was tightly wrapped in a several layers of old blankets, even still the man clutched the blankets to his bones in an attempt to ward of a chill that was unfelt by Voresyl. Perhaps it was the old man, or the lingering cool breeze from the night, or perhaps it was the icy cold chill of death closing in on the man.
Voresyl stopped just out of arms reach of the man, looking down at him with a piercing and suspicious gaze. After all this must have been the man Arkanian had sent him to meet, or more probably it was actually Arkanian himself. A long, thin wood pipe hung loosely from the corner of the mans mouth, but Voresyl keenly noticed that no smoke rose from it.
“Nice day for fishing…. Wouldn’t ya say?” The old man spoke first, croaking the words out in a deep, course voice. His voice made it all too obvious that the man had smoked for most of his considerable life span.
Voresyl stood silently appraising the man, who he expected was really the agent of death who he needed so badly to speak with. Though with Arkanian, it was rather difficult to tell for sure. Either way, Vorsyl was on edge and had no intention of messing this up. He had sensed the danger of this meeting just after leaving his own hotel room. There was no doubt he was in a potentially perilous situation. Vorsyl gave no answer.
The old man finally looked up, his dull gray eyes briefly caught contact with the sidereal and Voresyl could notice a sudden twinkle of sharp life in the back of the mans eye. He broke contact as he looked down briefly, he reached inside the bundled blankets and pulled a wad of tobacco out, stuffing it nimbly into the pipe. He struck the match he quickly produced along the edge of the bridge rail, lowering the sudden flame into the recently inserted tobacco. With a few deep breaths the pipe burst to life with smoke, both from the end of the pipe as well as from his slightly parted lips.
“Well done old friend.”
"We don't have much time, let's get down to business." Voresyl knew the next pulley car would arrive too soon, unless of course this turned south.
"Oh, a lack of subtlety from the star gazer. This must be serious." The words were delivered with the same croaking old voice of the old man, but the mocking tone of Arkanian could be felt in the words.
"You know why I called this meeting, we need to reevaluate the terms of our alliance. You have information about the dark lords in the Scavenger Lands, you know as well as I do that if we have insight into their plans it is better for the both of us." Voresyl had become relatively familiar with the psyche of Arkanian in their time together and knew the only reason Arkanian was likely to give up information was if it benefited him as much as the receiver of the knowledge. Of course it had been some time since their last meeting.
"We are here because I want us to be. Don't fool yourself into thinking otherwise." The hint of aggression in the old man's voice was unexpected by Voresyl, Arkanian preferred to be passive aggressive under most circumstances.
"Of course. And why is it you allowed this meeting?"
"Like you said, the time has come to reevaluate the nature of our relationship." The old man turned his deep gray eyes back towards the sidereal, peering through the thick smoke from the pipe with increasing sharpness.
Voresyl was beginning to get the sense that this meeting was not going to go as smoothly as he had hoped it might, of course he had prepared for the worst. Despite his best efforts he was unable to gather any information ahead of time from The Loom of Fate, Arkanian had been careful to completely remove any traces of himself from The Loom. Arkanian was an impressive specimen when Voresyl first met him, the fact that he had escaped The Mask of Winters at all confirmed this; however he had evolved into the most untraceable and mysterious figure in The Scavenger Lands.
"So it has... When our relationship began we provided you protection and you provided us information, you've made it clear you no longer want or need our protection. The question is, what is it you do want?" Voresyl expect an answer shrouded in mystery, but he still had hopes that an arrangement could be found to keep some sort of loose alliance between Arkanian and The Gold Faction.
"That is quite a popular question these days... The real question of course is, what do I want that you can give me?" The old man set the fishing pole into the rail of the bridge so that it was supported on its' own, as he did he folded his hands in his lap.
"We don't have time for this, what is it you want from me? Clearly you had something in mind when you called this meeting." Voresyl could sense that his time was running short, the next pulley car would be coming by shortly.
"All too right old friend. Unfortunately for you, you have nothing I want. Which leaves this relationship of ours only one place to go."
There was a moment of pause where no one moved, there was no sound, as if they were in the paused in the foreground and the background continued to move. The pulley car was cresting the hill and moving down the bridge but neither man needed to look back to see that. Simultaneously both men reached for their weapons, the old man stood quickly from the rocking chair as he threw back the blankets draped around his body as he drew a plasma-tongue repeater from his hip. Meanwhile Voresyl was reaching inside his cloak to draw his star-metal short daiklave from behind his back and slashing it out towards the old man's throat in a single motion. The old man's firearm spun upward, drawn from the hip the first shot would be fired from there with an almost silent click of the trigger, the barrel aimed directly for the throat of the sidereal.
The projectile fired from the barrel whizzed past Voresyl's face, slightly off the mark, only the white hot fire produced by shot singed the stargazer's fine skin. Voresyl's strike was not deterred by the shot towards his face, his strike horizontally across the body of the old man was guided by the influence of fate and struck true to it's mark. The old man's throat spilled open like the gut of a fish with a splash of thick, crimson gore that spattered across the typically immaculate demeanor of the seer.
The old man crumpled to the ground immediately, the plasma tongue repeater hit the street a moment before the man's already dead body crumpled to the cobblestone. Voresyl spent a moment looking over the body of the man, he reached down and turned the head back and forth quickly to check for any remaining signs of life. Voresyl was almost disappointed at the lack of fight, though with the quick resolution to the conflict Voresyl was left to assume this was merely a puppet rather than the real Arkanian.
Voresyl made a quick investigation of the corpse in only seconds, at first finding nothing of note but a moment before hopping onto the pulleycar that was just passing he saw a disturbing image. He hesitated for a moment, as the pulleycar pulled out of reach and he locked onto the belt buckle of the man that showed a sand timer about to run out. There was a sudden smell of firedust as the last grain of and ticked away, Voresyl's eyes went wide as sudden realization hit him.
Voresyl felt the heat of the explosion that was on the verge of enveloping him before he released the essence that wrapped him to his last known moment of safety, the instant before he had felt the looming danger of this meeting.