Dash licked his scarred lips. It would soon be time to reopen and deepen the wounds. Evolved bodies heal too quickly. Can’t lose the memory of that skill’s kiss. Good times...
“Muuurgh!”
Dash’s fist cracked against the prisoner’s kidney.
“Urk.”
“Can’t you see you’re distracting ME!”
The Rat Pack gang leader loomed over the Locust, hanging from their ankles upside down. The gang member’s face was completely obscured by a hood made of ghost lace, smudged purposely with coal from Old Bondes. Informally called a death shroud, the hood disrupted skills with necromantic energy. Useful for interrogations and selling on the blackmarket.
“I guess you can’t see that, my bad.”
Dash placed his hand over the shroud around the man’s mouth, the underused [Wet] of the dirty dozen soaked through, causing him to cough, spit, and flail for a minute. With enough experience, you get a sense when a man is finally broken. Dash pulled down the hood until it cleared the man’s nose and mouth, allowing him to pour a vial of an alchemical concoction designed to loosen willpower.
“I know you want to tell me why there are so many of you insects in my town. If you do, I’ll let you live.” [Convincing Lie] added weight to his words, drilling into the man.
The Locusts were a Naewauld gang. There might be business between the Rats and them, but it was just that. Bad enough they thought they were better because the Garden meant they could climb higher, that they lived in the city that housed the queen, and didn’t stink of death. As though death were a bad thing.
The rats send their best to evolve and come back home to Hazeldown. Rat pack ranks hold twice the tier ones that those stupid bugs promote.
“I’m just following the silver. See some sights. Get away from the Dark Croak. They paid for us to come. I’m sure they will spread it around. We can all get rich!” Desperation cracked the man’s voice.
Ah, money, the provenance of fools and those without power, ambition, or the willingness to take things without paying. Not that they couldn’t always use more of it. “That’s only useful if you tell me who was that generous and what they are paying for. Right now, all you’re telling me is that every bug I squish will have a pocket full of silver, and that is barely worth the cost of the shroud.”
Dash jerked the hood with a [Wet] hand to make a point. This fool had bragged about being a mid-level Locust.
“I don’t know!” Dash cracked a rib with his fist. “The middlemen you don’t mess with. Rumors that we’re here to rob the tourists and maybe take that uppity White down some levels. That’s all I know! I talked, now let me go.”
His uppity White. Oh, that girl, taking his knife, Dash made a fresh cut across his lips to taste blood and bring back the memories. She was a nobody then. Someone who evoked rage at rejection and then had Blue Faction interfere. Then, like a sign, she was above the city, moving, and mocking him, only to be named Lady White all those months ago.
“Of course I'll let you go after I get all the details,” Dash told him with [Convincing Lie].
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