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"Hey. Tinman." Lidia said after a long stretch of silence, looking down at her wrists as they walked.

"Yes?" Bart replied, eyes fixed ahead, letting her lead.

"About ye wee little book. I'm sorry, aye?" she apologized, shifting her ragged clothing back around herself more. "Suma o' the theivin' sort dinnae mind takin' whatever there is to be took, but ah cannae imagine losin' somethin' like that," she said, idly winding her hands into the mantle of her bright red cowl -- it was more of a short riding hood of sorts than a simple longcloak, well worn but well tended. She clearly treasured it, "Ye weren't wrong to run me arse down like wee scunner wit' the mornin' alms."

"Thank you, Lidia," Bart replied honestly. "I forgive you." The young woman looked up at him sharply, the large man's face turned back towards the street, axe across his shoulder. She said nothing, but there was a faint smile on her lips as she drew herself back up, steeling herself.

"... Hey, I know I cannae really ask much o' ye... but will ye take a little request o' mine before we get tae business?" she asked, looking up at him with uncertain eyes. The unsettling gleam of her feline gaze had a streak of worry in them that robbed much of the alien discomfort from them for Bart. The big knight raised an eyebrow,

"Go on," he prompted with a gesture, the pair coming to a stop. Lidia took a deep breath.

"I wanna take ye somewhere, Iffin' I'm about tae get snuffed I 'ave some people that need lookin' after," she explained, hugging herself a bit as they stood on the corner of the road, the common folk casting sidelong glances at them -- more at Bart than her. Pilgrimages were infrequent enough that he drew far more attention than the little red-hooded rogue. The big knight-brother shifted his helmet under his arm, his eyebrow up still.

"You would have me care for them?" he asked, and she huffed a bit.

"Nae, more... put in a good word with the big o' blond cunt in charge," she said, Bart frowning at her description of Commander Viconia. Lidia ignored it, continuing on; "Likely iffin' I get the chop ye'll turn up in the canals somewhere, all weighed down by that pretty armor o' yers." she commented wryly, flicking a finger against his pauldron with a tinny ring.

"... and you want me to give them permission to seek asylum with the Order," he finished for her skeptically, the little thief nodding.

"That's the shape o' it. They'll never do it on their lonesome, an' yes I dinnae need tae be told yer kind would take 'em in accountin' or nothin'." she sighed moodily, Bart nodding.

"We do not discriminate on whom we aid." Bart agreed, and it was true enough -- the Order may take a dim view of thievery, but redemption was available to all beneath the White God's compact. They would be welcomed. The red-headed cutpurse made a face at him before continuing.

"Anyhow -- will ye come wit' me for a spell before we go be grand idiots, and see 'em?" she asked, gnawing her lip, anxiety writ large across her features, "I really stepped in it wit' this one, an' I cannae go tae scrap with it knowin' I got untidied business, ye?" she asked, and her face was muted and pale, her eyes full of a familiar dread. She had before asked of others -- and been denied.

Bart had to genuinely think about it, looking at her and considering the circumstances. The dark anger bubbled up in his throat, tightening his jaw as he remembered her carefree attitude as he chased her not a half-hour before, his body still burned from the exertion -- a dozen minor hurts speaking up and egging that poisonous rage on. He wanted to say no. To spit on her presumption to ask yet more of him than she already had. Yet... he remembered faces like that in the Grey Plagues. That was a sobering thought. Bart set his axe aside and turned his head away, looking at the horizon... the anger cooled slowly and he leaned against the wall of the nearby building.

"Do you remember the Grey Plagues and the Purges?" Bart asked her, folding his arms across his chest, his helmet and axe sitting by his heel. The little cutpurse's eyes squinted in confusion, and she shuffled her feet a bit.

"Nae... Dad told me about them a bit. But we lived far out an' away, tae th' east towards Darrowmere and the Sidhewood thereabouts," she said, quirking an eyebrow with a rueful, fanged smile. "Obviously,"

"Obviously," Bart agreed, taking a breath, the memories were not pleasant. They were old memories. A child's memories viewed through the eyes of an adult.

"I wasn't much more than a lad when they started, small stuff at first. People got sick. Pestilence isn't anything too new, father didn't think much of it at first -- he'd seen a run of the sweating sickness similar when he was a lad." Bart began steadily. Lidia, suddenly enraptured, sat down next to him -- those intense green eyes attentive and focused.

"The Gray Plague wasn't just a passing infirmity, however. Skin turned the color of slate, then the eyes, and then the withering happened. Inside first, people's guts dried up and twisted inside of their bodies while they were still alive. They starved to death surrounded by food, died of thirst with plenty to drink." he said, making a sour face as he remembered the unseeing eyes of those already dead, yet still breathing. "Then outside, they'd... fall apart. In chunks. Pieces."

"Dad said it was right horrible, people dyin' all over." she muttered softly, frowning.

"It was the worst thing I've seen in my life, I was only a boy -- but I saw much," Bart continued, closing his eyes. "I saw bodies stacked in carts, I saw people crying over those not living but simply yet to fully die. I saw a lot of people suffer, a lot of people wronged," he said and fell silent a moment. The memories were old and well-healed, but he still remembered the smell. The sound.

"They were not a natural thing, the Empty Queen's apostate worshipers had brought it forth from her own foul places, a curse passed by some... monster of theirs. Once it became clear this wasn't just a disease, and that it was being spread -- purposefully -- by malign forces, trust broke down."

"Oh." Lidia said, as she seemed to gather where he was going, Bart opened his eyes and leveled his gaze at her,

"The Paladins of the Radiant Order of Our Lady in White, they were immune with their blessings, they could drive it from the bodies of the stricken -- but there were too many to heal and too few Hospitallers to do the healing, but they never turned anyone away. They tried, and they served. Even when their fingers bled and their bodies drooped -- they served."

"I imagine th' folks started tae get restless," Lidia said in a quiet voice, Bart nodded.

"The Purges. Order Paladins -- Knights of the Thorn -- sought out the apostates and their dens, and in them, they found men and monsters, whole communities subsumed in these filthy abattoirs beneath the earth. No one trusted anyone except a man in a white surcoat," he replied, laying his hand over his own.

"So... ye became one then?" she ventured, and Bart shrugged.

"No, not yet. I was still a young, fat child," he responded blithely, transferring that hand from his chest and the Eye-and-Horn device there, to his middle over his gut. Lidia snickered at that, the Knight-Brother raising an eyebrow; "It has been a problem for me since youth, big and broad like my dad but the baby-fat never really went anywhere... and others noticed."

"What d'ya mean?" she asked... but there was a creeping worry in her voice.

"Famine was a problem, all the sickness had led to poor harvests and worse deliveries. Fairharbour had taken in a lot of refugees from Reikstand and Darrowmere, and supplies were thin. Everyone was hungry... and then the Baker's son was still nice and plump." he said, frowning a bit. Lidia's eyes were wide, the story completely gripping her.

"The refugees made petty sport of me, it's how I broke my nose... but it's also how my father nearly lost his leg," he continued with a heavy sigh. Lidia's face paled, but she said nothing. Rapt and horrified.

"They pushed into the mill, demanded to know where the food was... when really I just was a fat child that didn't shed weight easily and never would. Father tried to calm them, but the crowd broke out into bedlam -- and they dislodged the millstone," he muttered in a low voice, raising his hand up vertically, and then somewhat dramatically -- swinging his arm level, like a large, heavy object falling over. Lidia swallowed.

"Crunch. Millstone heavy as three oxen landed on my father's leg. Just about pulped it. The refugees were horrified, blamed each other, and scattered... but one was good enough to call for the Hospitallers. They comforted my mother and I, and saved my father's life -- and most of his leg."

"How bad was it?" she asked in a small voice, the mention of his father seeming to have stirred something in her.

"Bad. Father nearly lost his life from the blood loss, and the leg was mangled besides. The Order Hospitallers, they could only do so much with their Mantle's magic. They saved it, but it's twisted and weak, can't bear his weight easily without a cane." he said, sighing as he tightened that hand over his stomach; "All because a few people were just hungry."

"Fookin' shites, all o' em, couldn't they tell ye was jus' a fattie?" she hissed, and it was Bart's turn to snicker a bit, the sting of the words blunted by years of distance and the understanding of adulthood.

"In truth, my mother had been giving me much of her food, she was always small and thin so we didn't notice until much later. Father was furious," he explained, shaking his head and meeting her gaze, "So now that you know what I've seen, why I am here -- ask me again." he offered, and the little thief seemed... less hesitant, her eyes narrowed at him.

"Ye tryin' tae convince me yer some kind o' saint?" She challenged him, still cagey, still sharp as the fae-given teeth in her head; "I heard lots o' sob stories, that one ain't special... even if it's sad." she groused at him stubbornly. Bart shook his head, that seething, writhing anger had subsided and he felt oddly at peace.

"No, I was trying to convince myself," he admitted, eyeing her pointedly; the little thief understood then, leaning back against the wall with a different look in her eyes. Wary but... curious.

"Will ye come an'... tell 'em everythin's gonna be Ok?" she asked him in a small voice. Bart looked at her steadily, the weight of his holy symbol seemed to tug at him. His convictions answered.

"Of course."

Lidia smiled, just a little.

~ ~ ~

The walk along the edge of the waterfront ended up in mostly silence again, Bart comfortably inside of his own head now, thinking more clearly and more focused on the task at hand -- but his young companion seemed preoccupied. Her eyes were frequently upon him, searching, staring with suspicion and also... curiosity. Her cat-like eyes felt very appropriate as she seemed to bat the idea of him around in her mind as the quality of the environs rapidly lowered.

They had followed the flow of the channel down, the massive canal through the city flowing roughly east to west. The character of the city was much like the river -- the unsavory and unwanted were always downstream, like flotsam on the current. So same were the western wharves, the outflow of the channels and shipping, and where the least amongst them got caught on the snags and deadwood of the city.

Bart looked around at his shabby environs; dive taverns and shanty-like arrangements of fishmongers and junk dealers took over where the lush and exotic stalls and dandified imports had ruled on the eastern side of the city. The people here were harder, leaner. There was a cagey hunger to the men, the groups of toughs on corners and perched on shipping boxes.

"Cheery bunch." the big knight-brother murmured, Lidia glancing up at him with an unreadable expression beneath her red cowl.

"Yer sort dinnae come 'round here tae often, not unless sommat's gone sideways." she said evenly, her mouth quirking to one side in a much more legible smirk with a hint of fang; "Mind yer purse."

"Absolutely." he agreed, eyes meeting a group of stout ruffians as they walked past, the sunken-eyed men staring at him with an impassive sort of disdain. Like a pack of jackals eyeing up a solitary lion.

"Quit starin' like that 'less ye wanna get shanked in th' nearest alley." she hissed at him quietly, elbowing him hard as they passed the gang of toughs, breaking Bart's focus.

"I'm not afraid of them," Bart said plainly, that ugly anger rising spitefully in his belly.

"Ye, they know -- an' it's pissin' 'em off." she urged him acidly, and Bart pointedly turned his gaze straight ahead. The handful of rough men muttering among themselves -- but not following.

"Were they thieves as well?" Bart asked somewhat dully, Lidia looked up at him with an incredulous expression.

"Oh ye're as clean as ah' preacher's sheets ain't ye?" she teased him with a fang-edged grin, shaking her head. "Nay, but they're sort o' in the family, tae speak." she said, waggling her hand in a so-so motion. "Boys'll be boys, and wee scunners and old bruisers what nae 'ave much but their fists still lump together like tae like," she explained as she turned them down another wide avenue, pulling them up a few blocks short of Tanner's Row, definitely the shabbier part of town near the exterior wall along the main canal -- nobody wanted to live too close to the stink and waste of the tanneries. Bart's nose wrinkled a bit, but Lidia's face was a clearly nauseous mask of sallow green as she continued.

"Gangs an' bully-boys play by the rules Kull sets down, even if they ain't on the payroll."

"The rat that makes all the rules, eh?" he replied and she tapped the side of her nose astutely.

She lead them up to a cluster of rougher, less-clean homes, the wares of lower quality and local make were plied here more than anything else. Hawkers and shopkeeps called their trade in a more common tongue, and overall it felt just a bit... desperate. Children ran to and fro, as did animals and the occasional tired-eyed workman -- staples of Heartlands society to which Bart found grounding. No matter their means, there was an honesty about the working man.

"Hey, over here Hayseed," Lidia piped, jerking her head along to one side -- indicating a narrow alley between a tall, ratty house and a high-fenced lot of sorts. The aged timber wall was centered around a stack of shipping crates that look like they may have been older than some of the surrounding masonry with the growth of green lichen and mosses along their edges and rooted plants at the corners. Lidia ducked between the boards of the ratty fence with little problem, but Bart came up short -- peering dubiously at the narrow gap between the planks.

"This isn't going to work," he stated, adjusting his helmet where it was tucked under his arm. Lidia's head peeked back through, looking him up and down with a disappointed frown.

"Lady's Teats ye're too fookin' big for anythin'." she groused, Bart's lips compressed in a hard line.

"Language," he said with a tone of quiet finality, she blinked at him -- and found his blue gaze unyielding, she scowled at him.

"Whatever, Hayseed. Sit a spell, I'll get the gate," she said, jerking her chin to the right, Bart following her gaze down to a heavy barred gate around the lot; the whole thing equally green-edged and water-warped.

"This is locked -- from the other side," Bart asserted as he arrived at it. Lidia's knife-like silhouette flashed behind it, her eyes a brief flash of green in the shade of the alley,

"That's th' idea, hayseed," she said, and the door clicked open with an artful twist of her hand, swinging it open on surprisingly well-oiled hinges. Bart raised an eyebrow but ducked into the shaded yard.

The yard was clearly some old abandoned storage area for one of the many shipping concerns, the crates were far more rotted as they came through - and the stones overgrown with vines and runners that rustled beneath his boots as he followed toward a ramshackle old shed of sorts, the door clearly shored back up by small, inexpert hands.

"Oi! Coast's clear!" she called softly, and out of the shadows, corners, and windows morphed up a dozen or more shapes, eyes all glittering in the half-light of the shaded lot. Bart's back stiffened as he realized how close some of the concealed forms had been to him and he hadn't noticed, twisting around to look at them in mild alarm. Small faces looked back up at him with large, too-knowing eyes.

Children.

"Lidia!" A voice crowed, and the crowd of diminutive shapes all flowed out and hung, draped and dangled in a sort of controlled chaos as the very character of the lot came alive as its juvenile residents settled naturally into their turf, eyes all on their green-eyed leader, grinning proudly at Bart as the little horde of cloaked lads and lasses all appeared to assemble around her. They were nondescript, each and every one just another tiny face in a crowd... but they had a common thread.

Bright red cowls. Each one of the little ragamuffins, either pulled close over their faces or tucked about them like a scarf, wore a bright, red hood.

"Like I said, hayseed. Like tends tae lump in tae like," she announced cheekily, spreading her arms wide; "Say 'ello tae th' Redcaps, best gang o' pickpockets in town." she said, crossing her arms proudly as they gave a little -- pointedly quiet -- cheer. Bart, in spite of himself, could not help but grin at the display.

"Marvelous." was his only reply, the urchins all grinned brightly.

~ ~ ~

The Tanner Street Redcaps, or just The Redcaps for short -- were all of them, to a one -- children. Lidia was the oldest by quite a bit, most of them perhaps nine, ten, twelve summers at most old. This lot and it's shed was their headquarters of sorts, and Bart sat now with a whole gaggle of young cutpurses sizing him up as Lidia kicked back at the head of her own little guildhall, sitting on a high-backed chair at the end of a lopsided, tattered old table.

"Kull makes th' rules, but he knows how tae spread th' doin' o' things 'round," she said as the kids all peered at Bart and his dented, glimmering armor -- all remaining a fairly wary distance from the Churchman, he was hesitant to call it respectful. Lidia continued; "So I decided tae jus' do that for 'em, after all -- my lads and lasses are tae best thieves in town already, right?"

"RIGHT!!" came back the call and Lidia grinned... but there was worry in her eyes, her body was tense, a hand nervously fidgeting with a copper penny as she sat -- twirling it back and forth between her fingers, dancing it across her knuckles. The motions hard, quick, agitated.

"Lidia!" came a little voice, and Bart saw one of the taller girls stand up. A small, lean thing with dark hair, pale eyes, and fair skin -- a shocking contrast to the tanned, dirty cast of the other children. She was cleanly if humbly dressed unlike the others in their rough, ragamuffin cast-offs and make-do rags - her red hood wore down over a very plain but neatly-stitched homespun dress, and her jet black, arrow-straight hair carefully combed and set with a lopsided but otherwise pretty white ribbon.

"Elly! What ye all dressed up fer?" she asked the young girl, her brows furrowing as the waif skipped up to her side, leaning on her chair's arm.

"Jimmy heard from Conner, who was told by Bats that Kull wants to see me!" she chirped, her eyes serious but excited; "Said I have a job to do!"

"Oh aye, ye bes' gon' do it straight away after I say wot ah' came tae say, right?" she said, the tiny girl nodding ferociously -- she couldn't be more than twelve, putting her towards the older end of the kids... but that wasn't saying much. Bart found himself full of a growing sense of disdain -- not for these children, but their circumstances -- and the men that put them there. Bart was considering some choice words for his meeting with this Kull.

"Hayseed this is Elly, she's my second o' command," she grinned, the pale-eyed little girl beamed up at him, that same look of too much, too soon visible in her eyes. There wasn't much innocence in that sky-blue gaze. An emptiness of sorts, and a fire. A fire burned defiant in those eyes.

"I'm the best of the best!" she chirped, her accent strangely in-between Lidia's brogue and a more common Heartlands lilt. There was a bit of a dare in her tone, and even dressed up as she was, there was a bit of hardness to her stance, an almost feral quality to her only street children had, "I can climb, and jump and walk on my hands!" she beamed at him, pride in her voice; "Lidia's the only person who can ever catch me."

"She's me best, nae comparin'," Lidia agreed, ruffing the girl's hair lightly, getting fussed at.

"Nooo, I just combed it. Kull said to look all churchy-like!" she protested, Bart's eyebrow going up

"Churchy-like?" he inquired, his first words really since coming into the shed-turned-hideout, and his deep voice hit the other children like a thunderbolt in the quiet confines. Elly just nodded.

"Yeah, like you dress for services up at the big churchhouse," she answered, looking down at her dress; "I don't get to be all churchy-like very often, harder to jump than pants but..." she smiled a bit; "I like dresses."

"You look lovely." Bart agreed gamely, getting a little smile from the raven-haired girl. Close-up her features were clearly Darrowmite. She was long and lean, gazelle-like, the sharp, severe lines of her face painting it plain. She could have been a dancer, a performer, were her circumstances different -- Bart didn't need to see her leap a building or balance on a ledge to tell she had that same kind of easy grace that Lidia had, just less practiced and mature.

"Are you gonna take big sis away?"

The question hit Bart like a broadhead, and the comparison was fresh enough to be quite stinging. Seated as he was at the other end of the table from Lidia, he felt very much in court with this tiny senate of street urchins. A little family formed out of need, and then love. All those innocence-free eyes stared at him with a knowing expectation -- he had come here for something.

The worst part was they were right.

"Nae like that, dinnae worry," Lidia said perhaps a bit too smoothly, the coin, however, stumbled across her knuckles, faltering even as Elly furrowed her brow but nodded, Lidia winked at her and raised her voice a bit, "Ye know I'd ne'er go without a fight," she crowed with a bit of smugness that put the fire back into the little gang of tots; "That's what the Knight's here fer, he's a real-deal Knight o' the Lady." she said, Bart smiled humbly.

"Just a pilgrim, really." he corrected, but the quiet denial clearly fired all of the young mind's images of what a Knight-Brother of the Radiant Order was like.

"He's a right storybook sort, he caught _me," _Lidia said, getting a collective gasp from all the assembled irregulars, Lidia nodded gravely, playing well to a familiar audience, "He's gonna help me find th' others, an' put a right fear o' God in whomever took 'em," her face met his as she spoke, turning her eyes up to him expectantly... he felt somewhat put-upon, to be honest, but nonetheless the big churchman nodded,

"Yes, the disappearances have been brought to my attention, I have pledged to give what aid I can in finding them," he agreed, raising one mailed hand with a pause before adding "... after Lidia stole my purse, that is." earning several more snickers and barks of stifled laughter, Lidia spun the coin through her knuckle as she leaned in to her gang,

"Now... things are a right bit dire at the moment, chums," she began, her tone turning serious, "Kull an' I are gonna have some problems, on account o' the Ser here... well... catchin' me," the urchins all went very still, their eyes slowly turning to Bart with mute worry written on their faces. Bart raised his chin in spite of it,

"She took something precious to me, I saw it returned." his voice rang with a sternness that brooked no argument, the authority in his tone visibly quailing several of their number -- Bart's iron principles lending weight to his words.

"An' he got me, done an' dusted," Lidia confirmed with an uncharacteristic humbleness to her tone; "Full view o' the city, I know Reggie saw part o' it." a skinny Reiklander youth nodding from the crowd, Lidia's lips tightening in acknowledgment, nodding along, "Kull knows, or will by the time we make th' Counthouse, so I want ye tae listen to the Ser fer a spell, hear me?" she asked, and the little heads all nodded, before turning those too-old eyes on him once more. Bart felt that authority he had before suddenly bear its iron down upon him instead, uncomfortable with its weight.

"If the worst happens, you can present yourself to the Radiant Order Redoubt, ask for Commander Viconia. Tell them Ser Bart sent you and they will take care of you." His words were even, careful and spoken with genuine sincerity, he raised a hand to his heart; "So I swear, on my Oath as Knight-Brother of the Radiant Order of Our Lady in White." he ended the recitation with two raised fingers -- tracing a circle in the air before his brow, followed by a bisecting downward stroke at the end from crown to chin -- the benediction of the Church of Our Lord in Ivory. Ever-Vigilant.

The silent vigil of too-old eyes in too-young faces took him in, then one by one they nodded, just little motions. Nothing dramatic, they all took their eyes from him after a while, looking to Lidia again. She met Bart's eyes with an unreadable look in her green gaze, but she nodded back at him one more time.

The coin faltered on her knuckles and fell.

~ ~ ~

The grim tidings had cooled the mood rapidly, dispersing the young cut-purses back into the city along with the unlikely pair of adults. They had filtered out in pairs and trios until Lidia had pulled Bart back out the way they came, making their way back towards the waterfront -- angling directly towards the warehouses and stacks in the near distance.

"Hey," Lidia said after a long, quiet walk. The shadows' length showed a half-hour's time or more since their departure from the walled lot. Bart turned his head with an inquisitive eyebrow.

"Thanks, fer takin' it seriously. Takin' them seriously," she said softly, Bart stiffened, his lips turning down into a thoughtful frown.

"They are children, they deserve the light of hope," he agreed, his gaze turned to her with an approving nod, which she returned -- Lidia's own thankful, if curt response tight and restrained, her eyes looking up to the next bend in the road. She took a deep breath, letting it out slowly -- and seemingly with it, her troubles, tugging Bart gently by the arm.

"Aye, here we go. Turn here an' watch yer topper." she said, Bart looked around as they did, turning a corner at the edge of the wharf into a tight alley, where he did in fact nearly walk face-first into a dangling rope, laden with sodden laundry, the entire length of the area between buildings strung densely with linens and smocks drying on lines.

"You aren't having me on for a laugh are you?" he asked, ducking and following behind her carefully, his broad, armored frame having to turn sideways at some places to fit, her nimble frame easily flowing around and under the obstacles.

"I promise, swear on me mum... wherever she is." the young woman said as she guided him deeper into a labyrinth of tight, claustrophobic alleyways - the unplanned gaps between buildings, walls, and canals - reeking of damp, decay, and moist wooden rot. Bart's sense of direction became hopelessly muddled as the increasingly cluttered alleys grew taller, the shadows longer, and the amount of sky he could see slimmer and slimmer through the deepening dimness.

"Ah, 'ere we are. Watch yer 'ead a bit, most of our lads ain't large as ye." came her voice as she ducked into the shadows to her side... seemingly into a solid wall. Bart blinked, staring at the apparently impassable section of wall, even going so far as to walk directly up to it. Squinting in the darkness, he reached forward to press a palm against the barrier... and found his hand made no purchase. He tipped forward, overbalancing as his eyes adjusted and his foot came down heavy to right himself... a clever, clever trick! The stones of the wall had been artfully cut, painted, and polished to confuse the eye, and augmented by the dim light and angle of the wall -- had hidden the gap of the ally between them with an optical illusion. A casual glance would just see an irregular wall with adjacent debris and muddy afternoon shadows. A simple crack of darkness between two buildings.

"Oy, ye gonna gawp or ye gonna follow?" came Lidia's voice again, her sidheborn eyes all that could be seen of her in the gloom, green and luminous in the darkness beyond the passage - the two points of light ruining the illusion and making the roofed alley beyond plain to the eye.

"So you can see in the dark then?" he asked, ducking his head through the concealed entrance, the inside of the alleyway lined floor to ceiling in worn, dark bricks. Her eyes gleamed next to him; "Aye. Coulda nae find me arse at first, grew into like ye do tits or whiskers. My eyes adjust to the dark like o' anyone, jus'... better." she said, looking back up at him, one of the gleaming circles flashing at him in a roguish wink.

She lead him out of the dim tunnel into a very different place, a small overgrown courtyard and a dingy old squared-off building of far, far older style and design than the rest of the city he'd seen. It was but a single story save for an obvious deep basement that had it sitting squat and flush back against one of the tall whitewashed warehouses facing outward to the wharves - almost entirely swallowed in the shadow of the other buildings and stocking rooms that loomed two or more stories tall on either side. The newer structures hemmed it into a little shady nest with but thin streams of sunlight peeking down between the tops of the rooves on high. Moss and vines had reclaimed much of the structure's exterior, wrapping the entire area in a feeling of dire, desperate darkness and old secrets. Skeletons of the past draped across the old house in the cracked and dry limbs and cheery green lichen. A path had been beaten into the gnarled, root-strewn floor, heavy timbers laid into it to make a rudimentary road leading to the steps at the foot of the fortified houses' impressive double doors. It was as much a fortress as a home now, and doubtless, it had been designed as such from intent.

"This whole thing, just... forgotten?" Bart asked as they emerged from the alley, a dimness covering the entire area, Lidia nodded.

"Aye, a palm or two greased here an' there, then nobody er'er looks nary too close at this old part o' the city. Even' though its one o' the original countin' houses from the foundin' o' the city proper." She said, and that lit up Bart's mind with his studies, the knight's training jumpstarted by the word.

"A counting house, so its mostly stone, and its built..."

"... Right inna the waterworks an' foundations o' the city proper, ye." Lidia finished for him, raising her arms above herself, cracking her laced fingers as she stretched, looking at him levelly as she watched him put it together.

"So fortified, and a thousand back-doors through the sewers and runoff canals, and every little back alley here in the warehouses..." he mulled over, walking the perimeter towards the obvious opening in the gate.

"A handy lil' bastion o' lawlessness... we even technically pay rent." she chuckled at the absurdity of it, which drew a snort from Bart and a raised eyebrow, she grinned at him.

"We do, honest! Well... an' ol' taffer up in the canal-side o' town does, somewhere buried in all of the retirement funds and money in his name is a little deed his ol' butler takes care of for him, that says this ol' lot is bein' used for storage of cultural art-o-facts" she chuckled, hooking her thumbs into the waistband of her trousers. "Warm in the winter, too. Chimney smoke gets ignored wit' all the stockin' room stoves. Better than a barrel oe'er on tenth." she said.

"Still, we just walked right up." he said, seeming put out at the lack of defenses or resistance.

"We walked right up 'cause I was leadin' ye. Trust me boyo, ye'd 'ave 'ad a lot o' interestin' company if you managed to follow this exact path o' mine solo."

"Sentries?"

"Oh ye. At least ah dozen sets o' eyes been on us since we turned inna the wee alley wit' the knickers in the breeze."

"I didn't feel like I was being watched." he objected dimly, looking around, hand tightening on his axe haft, Lidia shrugged it off, snorting at him again.

"Ye bein' watched all th' time, its a city. We jus' got the most eyes out." she lead him into the compound and those 'eyes' readily made themselves more apparent, figures with the unmistakable shapes of crossbows melted out of the shadows in the walls, and a dozen more cowled and cloaked shapes he hadn't spotted walking in appeared as they passed. He generally had considered himself a perceptive man, but this was a touch humbling.

"Lidia!" boomed a voice far, far too joyous for its surroundings, an ambulatory beard appeared at the door to the counting house, flanked on either side by two men in nothing even vaguely resembling a uniform. He was a meaty butterball of a man, bright, canny eyes peering from beneath a thick beetling brow. He was soft in the way old guardsmen and tired farmhands were, giving him an oddly solid, oblong shape that his faded doublet and hose didn't compliment, his paunch hanging heavily over the waistband as he spread his arms wide.

"Tell me, my girl, why am I hearing talk as if you've lit the entire canal district on fire?" the fat man chortled, his thick, curly beard bristling as he spoke; "And if you could, at your own pace, of course, my sweetest blossom... explain why you're standing in front of my count house, with a bloody Knight of the Radiant Order?" he asked, his jolly tone growing dangerously terse as he finished the sentence, folding his hands together over a well-worn, brass headed cane.

"No rush, if it's too complicated a story we can just cut to the end." he said, his face still warm and welcoming, but his tone had grown quite chillingly cold. Bart felt the eyes of the various cutthroats on him, a mixture of disdain and curiosity in their hard eyes. Lidia grinned wide.

"'Bout all that Kull, let's just say I got a little overexcited with a challenge," she said, and the fat man nodded, raising an eyebrow sharply.

"Yes, yes I heard about that. The chase around the docks, out onto some barges even." he said, pausing and turning his head to Bart, face inquisitive; "Did you really swing across the canal on a loading crane?"

"Yessir." Bart answered automatically, ceding to the man's implied authority by reflex, a gesture that the fat thief noted with a arch flash of his eyes as he chuckled.

"Bully for you then, yes." he said folding his hands on his cane's head again; "I assume you were so stricken with his bravery and tenacity that you simply, could not... vanish, into one of the thousands of holes that I gamely and at great expense, I remind you - have provided you for just such a purpose?!" his voice started warm and gregarious, but rising in heat and force until the final words of the sentence exited his mouth in a roar, eyes pinpoints of fury and more than anything -- disappointment. Lidia flinched away from that, pulling her hood forward over her eyes, their alien sheen glimmering in the darkness.

"No sir, Kull sir." she began, her entire body language changing; "I got caught up in th'-"

"Yes, yes caught up in the chase, again!" Kull barked, cutting her off with a heavy, stubbing finger directly in her face, anger and concern on his heavy features, beard bristling with agitation. "Caught up in chasing idiot plans of ego and vanity!" he roared, his knuckles white as he clenched his fist, one got the impression this was an old argument between the two, but this felt... final.

"But Mister Kull, sir... I jus' needed ta-" she didn't get to finish as she was cut off by a ringing, meaty smack of flesh against flesh. Kull's hand had crashed, open-handed and heavy across her cheek, his shoulder leading the blow and driving her to the ground under his greater weight, Bart started at that but found himself given pause by the familiar click of the arms of a crossbow behind him.

"What am I to say to them now, Lidia!?" Kull roared at the floored woman, clutching her face, eyes full of familiar tears of rage. "You were good enough! You did me fine and proud and true by your every little lifted purse and stolen key, but it was never enough for you was it!" he accused, the meeting took a very public, very emotional angle as she struggled to sit up more out of sheer intimidation than injury.

"Now I have no choice, you think they don't see how I doted on you? on all your little gremlins that latched onto your banner, Lidia the 'Bandit Queen'?" he mocked, his voice snarling down at her as he leaned down; "A title you granted yourself with nary a fuckin' shite given to the trouble it might cause the rest of us. Now here we are, in front of everyone -- a member of the White Lady's Radiant Bloody Order at my doorstep, your hand in his pocket in public, and all eyes are not here." he said, pointing at her roughly.

"They are instead... here." he growled, pointing two fingers back at his own eyes. "Your mistakes are seen as my weakness, and my strength is the only thing that keeps you in the life to which you've become accustomed, your little flock of hangers-on too." he said, leaning away from her, turning back to the house and taking a pipe from his coat. Lidia stayed on the ground.

"Ser Knight, know that I have nothing but professional respect and rivalry for your order. Your ideals may be... childish but I don't envy the notion of a world where the Empty Queen rules Northsea." he said, turning, his voice a rolling baritone - the fat man's ability as an orator was powerful. He drew on the pipe, meeting Bart's gaze fearlessly. "Consider my people's gentle ministrations the strop to keep your edges finely honed." Bart nodded in response to that, somewhat dumbstruck by the rather... honest way the man seemed to be acting, receiving an almost militarily precise nod in return as he looked down on the crumpled woman.

"Lidia. You were practically a daughter to me." he sighed, tapping the bowl of the pipe on his cane. "Keys to the kingdom were yours, you just had to learn to play the game, and I was happy to teach." he leaned down next to her, face in a hard mask.

"You know I have to kill you now, if this was the first time, or even the fifth there would be a chance... but this is beyond the pale entirely," he said, and she shook her head, shaking off her shock.

"No, no Mister Kull please I can make it right!" she said and he raised an eyebrow and barked.

"Tell me how, give me something." he snarled quietly, banging his fist on the stones as he spoke more to her than anyone; "Anything, I will take it. But if it isn't good enough for them, it will be your life." he said with finality, his eyes sad.

"It's the Knight, he's agreed ta square it as o' debt," she said, struggling at last to her feet as she found her courage, meeting Kull's eyes again with her own red with stifled tears. "I'll work it off, honest," she said, and Kull leaned forward, smiling at that less than enthusiastically.

"How enterprising, bully for you Lidia." he said, and jabbed his cane at her; "That squares your debt to the knight, but neither of your debts to me for the attention and damage you have caused, why bring him here?!" he asked, and it was Bart's turn to interject, clearing his throat pointedly. The entire room went silent, Kull's head tracking with almost mechanical precision to Bart's position, before exaggeratedly gesturing for him to continue.

"Master Kull, sir," Bart stated with the respect he'd reserve for a head of household, once again getting the faint twinkle from the man's eye that he'd struck true to how the fat thief expected to be addressed, he followed it easy enough. Pride goeth and all. "I am here because there are I am told, children missing." he said, drawing himself up straight and planting his axe at a parade rest, mostly for the presence it lent him.

"I would still be ignorant of such things, had your enterprising Bandit Queen not picked my pocket, and opened my eyes to the suffering of the lower classes here in Lachheim, on the doorstep of my home." he said and for emphasis, clashed his fist to his breastplate; "So I come to settle accounts with that which would prey upon the innocent here." he said, and the not-so-fine point was made, Kull raising his head with a faint 'ah', even going so far as to tap his chest with two fingers, as a fencer would declaring a touch.

"So, allow me to grasp this." he said, looking the knight up and down, the fat thief's face a mask of scrutiny. "Lidia told you there were children missing, preyed upon; and you not only believed her -- but came here in person, alone -- in full panoply no less," he asked, his head tilting as he couldn't help but allow a wry grin to spread across his lips.

"Tell me honestly Ser Knight, if we'd just decided to kill you once you got here, what was your plan?"

"To make a good accounting of myself before God, sir." Bart answered laconically as he stared the fat thief down evenly, the two men standing off there, eyes locked. Kull's face lit in a truly joyous smile, and his belly shook like a bowl of pudding as a deep, ribald laugh split his lips and the air, looking back and forth and even shoving one of his would-be guards as if to tell him to lighten up.

"Ah, ye gods and you would have too if you kept up with Lidia. I almost want to give the order... just to see it," he said, and rolled the idea over in his mind, stroking his beard as he looked Bart over. "Truly, you did just walk in here like the hero from a storybook," he said, shaking his head and laughing.

"Very well, I accept this gamble of yours Lidia." he said, looking at Bart and pointing at him. "Sheerly for the brash, unrestrained balls of this man. I want you to remember that, Lidia. Good or bad." he reached over and jabbed Bart's breastplate with his cane to a tinny clink of metal; "This man's sheer bravado just saved you from your own." he grinned and took his pipe in his teeth at that.

"I enjoy the irony."

And just like that, he pulled Lidia to her feet and touched her face, an almost fatherly concern about him. "Good, it won't bruise," he said with genuine chagrin in his voice that confused Bart, Lidia smiled with lots of teeth at that.

"Ye taught me tae roll wit' a hit better than that," she said, and it was a moment between them in silence as the old, fat thief drew in a deep breath and put both hands back on his cane.

"Well then, since nobody is dying today -- at least not right here, I assume everyone here has a job they should be doing, yes?" he said, raising his voice and one sharp eyebrow at the crowd of cutthroats and thieves, who obediently melted into shadows and out of sight save for the two nondescript toughs by the door that seemed to intentionally radiate the word 'thug' at an elemental level.

"Let us retire inside and continue this very, very interesting discussion, mayhaps I can even find a way that you live through it Ser Knight." The three, plus his muscular entourage retired back inside, the building itself much like an actual modern counting-house was composed of a single room divided by a large, barred wall with gated doors and a slot within which to pass coinage and documents. To the left a stairwell cut into the stones, leading to the basements and main vaults, the right was a wall of bookshelves and cabinets. The rear-most wall was shod in end-to-end shelves of painstakingly arranged books and ledgers, which framed the background of a comfortable-looking if broken-down chair and desk sat before in the teller's slot, surprisingly... studious in its overall nature rather than the gaudy throne room he expected of the King of Thieves in Lachheim.

"Oh do close your mouth Ser Knight, being a thief is just being a businessman with less taxes," Kull said in that sonorous voice of his, passing behind the barred divider and settling his great girth into the well-worn chair and taking up a rest for his pipe. The two men who were more necks with arms and knuckles than actual functional humans pushed a pair of chairs up in front of the desk at the slot, they themselves milling about casually in the background -- hands always busy but their eyes never straying from Lidia and Bart. Bart set his axe by the door and took a seat, moves that got him a barely perceptible nod from the burly toughs.

"Let us begin first, now that we're in private -- with my thanks, Ser Knight. Lidia is quite special in our community, she has just as many enemies as she does friends and it makes her shining personality a challenge to maintain."

"Oh yes," Bart responded laconically. "Her charisma and charm were like a beacon from God." The fat thief smirked and tapped the side of his nose as Lidia crossed her arms and frowned severely at both of them.

"Yes, quite. But I'd be lying if I said I wasn't fond of her. So I will hide wildly behind any technicality I can if it means I don't have to have her publicly executed. Do be a good man, and provide me with a nice, girthy one -- you can see I am a man of no small size, I require it."

"Since when do thieves need technicalities or any reason to do anything at all?" Bart asked almost more to himself than his assembled company, bemused by the seemingly mundane reality of such a fairy-tale thing as a thieves' guild.

"As I said, Ser Knight. Crime is a business. And like all businesses on Tor-Larann, our little war-torn marble - they operate on a series of assurances. Checks and balances. Records, if you can believe it." he said, waving a hand to his left where more shelves sat behind the divider, neat and orderly, "Those are taxable records of the entire thieves' guild income for the last 40 years, Lidia be a doll and fetch me the last quarter's earnings." Bart's face was a mask of confusion as the scrappy thief woman stood up and retrieved a hard-bound ledger book from the shelf, which she then handed to Kull. The ponderous man inspected its spine a moment before slapping it down before Bart, and flipping it open on the desk, busying himself with a drawer in the desk itself. "Tell me, Ser Bart. What do you see in the third column there -- and don't play dumb I know you understand a granary inventory when you see one." he said, his eye gleaming at Bart and Lidia over the desk before he vanished again.

"I never told you my name." Bart hedged, Kull looked up blandly, meeting the knight's eyes with his own agate-hard gaze.

"No. You did not." he agreed quite readily... and went back to the drawer, shuffling papers while snapping his fingers. "The Ledger, Ser Bart I assure you that you are still operating at my pleasure not my hospitality."

Bart scanned the ledger, and it was in fact a grain report. Everything seemed... normal, he scanned the third column and began furrowing his brow.

"We haven't produced that much grain this season, late harvest," he said, and Kull laid another series of papers.

"No, we haven't. its a problem. Tell me, what else?" he asked, and Bart's eyes returned to the document. He peered across it and noted something else.

"This Magistrate, this isn't THE magistrate's manor, is it? These orders are all wrong, that's not enough grain for a house of four, let alone a full collection of servants and guests..." he said - The Magistrate was Lachheim's - and the Heartlands' as a whole, effective ruler. The closest thing the heavily Democratic farmland nation had to a king. Kull beamed at him.

"Curious isn't it? Too much grain in one place, and a starvation diet in the richest house in town." The big thief said, leaning forward over the desk towards him; "You see Bart, the true challenge of thievery is smuggling. We steal here, but we do not sell here, cannot have a merchant buying back his own stolen goods after all, too obvious." he said and gestured down at the books.

"Ordinarily things like this, we break up across multiple sectors, grain, textiles, imports... it makes the fenced wealth fade into the margins, nobody checks every sack on every shipment. This." he tapped the book and raised a hand over the sheaf of papers he'd produced; "And this, is our Lord Magistrate's doings. I don't know what's in these shipments either." he said, and gently reached up, adjusting the pince-nez spectacles on his broad nose, his eyes gleaming dangerously behind them.

"I don't like that."

"Clearly." Bart replied, looking at all of the data, the pages held out of his reach undoubtedly showing similarly very poorly-cooked books. "Why show all of this to me? its quite a bit of... overkill for something you clearly intend to force me to do."

"He's showin' off." Lidia chuckled, her boots up on the edge of his desk, a feature the older man drew attention to with a faint cough, the woman smiling impishly and taking her feet down. "The ol' taffer never gets anyone so totally ignorant o' the way o' things like you, Hayseed." she said, fishing a small long-stemmed pipe from her pouches, tapping around until Kull himself slid a small snuffbox along the table for her, she smiled at him graciously and packed her pipe.

"You can prove none of it." Kull admitted glibly, drawing a hempwick match from his desk's tinderbox and placidly lighting Lidia's pipe from his desk candle, the musty smell of the herb filling the air.

"An' he gets to tell you all of his wonderful woven plans witin' plans, wheels inna wheels and all that." the little thief exhaled slowly, blowing a smoke ring up towards the ceiling, "He's still planning to kill ye iffin' ye cross him, but I thought ye'd wanna know he was havin' a grand time o' things." she drawled, grinning and tucking her pipe back into her lips.

"She's correct. Glib, and horrendously uncouth, but correct. I am quite enjoying myself, its been a stressful time lately." the fat man agreed gamely, turning the papers under his hands over; "Sadly... the time for pleasantries is over." he said, and pushed the papers forwards... these Bart also recognized immediately: watch reports. Military writing all tended to look alike, and it took Bart's eyes still so fresh from The Abbey little time to scan over the writs, he read across the top down but Kull seemed game to indulge him.

"You'll notice these reports are all notifications of missing persons. Children mostly but persons all the same. Each time the dates here..." he dragged a hand from the missing people to the open ledger. "Align with the dates here." he concluded grimly.

"The Magistrate's responsible." Bart asserted, and Kull nodded in agreement.

"Logical, isn't it? But I cannot for the life of me figure why - if these children are vanishing and indeed making up these enormous weight discrepancies what is the goal? Where are they going? The Knife-Edge Islands are a far ways from Lachheim Ser Knight, so slavery isn't too profitable. Everyone I send to look into it either ends up on the other sheet of paper, or comes back... wrong." he explained, raking his fingers through his beard.

"Wrong?" Bart asked archly, and the thief nodded. "Indeed. They walk and talk as if men, but there's a hollowness to them, and they become completely useless for information about the Magistrate's circumstances, 'everything's just fine' is all I hear." the old thief added.

"So what power do I bring? I am just one man, surely Commander Viconia's attention could be brought to the matter?"

"We don't do that," Kull interjected tartly as Lidia winced; Bart looked around confused as even the two thick-necked toughs shifted in the corners to look at him warily.

"How is it a problem? You have involved me in this, and my resources are limited. Hers are not, we're both of the Order."

"Yes, but she is authority. I am not involving the Order, I am involving you," he stated pointedly. Palms flat on his desk he leaned forward, the warm torchlight making his visage dim and imposing. "Involving the Order at-large is a declaration of war in our circles son, your kith and kin are consummate professionals and won't turn a kind eye on either party if they truly decided to turn over this cozy rock we're all hiding beneath," his voice a low, rumbling baritone full of dread.

"I fail to see how I am different." Bart argued again and Kull rolled his eyes, drumming his fingers across the desktop.

"You are a Knight-Brother on pilgrimage, yes?" he asked, Bart's mouth opening initially in protest but the order soldier closed it after a moment, simply nodding, he should have guessed that Kull knew already, the fat thief snapped his fingers and pointed directly.

"Pilgrims get up to all sorts of random acts of do-goodery and heroism." he said, smiling and spreading his hands; "I simply have to say that you're an enterprising adventurer, set you in the right direction... and then get out of your way." the thief concluded, grinning widely.

"That's massively dishonest." Bart groused sorely, folding his arms across his chest; "You're just involving us in a way that you can lie in the most transparent way about directly to the Magistrate's face." he accused which the fat thief and Lidia both exchanged delightfully venomous smiles with one another.

"That is rather the idea, delicious isn't it?" was the crooning response, a low cackle emanating between his wide-smiling teeth.

"You see Ser Knight, this entire enterprise operates entirely on a series of mutually unspoken agreements to look this way, or not look that way. A series of politenesses that must be observed. The Magistrate has offended me, and I intend to offend him back." he said bluntly, settling back and idly packing a long-stemmed pipe of his own with a golden mouthpiece.

"I will know what's happening in my city, Ser Knight. My children are missing," Lidia stood as he held the pipe out, the young woman taking the hempwick match from the tinderbox, and lighting Kull's pipe in turn - the complexities of their relationship perfectly crystallized in that almost autonomous action as he drew from it, a comfort visible in the interaction that spoke of many repeat performances. His eyes were dangerously cold, the fury in them that of a howling blizzard. Frigid. Unforgiving.

"Nobody touches my children, Ser Knight."

Bart nodded his head in agreement, he needed no further convincing. Be that zeal, ignorance, or some mix of the two he didn't care particularly much at the moment, he pushed the papers aside at the cold fury in the man's gaze, something he understood.

"So what's your plan then? I would simply go to the Magistrate's home directly and challenge him on these things, however, that seems to be too overt for your liking."

"A bit, Ser Knight. Do not worry, your thirst for mayhem will undoubtedly be slaked. No, Lidia's going with you. Lidia." he said, looking up. She perked from where she sat, pointedly near his right hand. "You will get to redeem yourself, and put your acting lessons to work."

"Sister ye think, or mummy?" she asked and Kull stroked his long beard, looking up at Bart a moment.

"Mother. This is punishment afterall." the young woman groaned and slumped in her chair.

"I hate being someone's mum." she grumbled, and Bart looked between the two;

"A disguise I take it?" Kull smiled.

"Let many things be said about Order Knights they are not dull-witted. Yes, I have a plan in place already you'll serve nicely. A pilgrim met with a mother in need." he said and pushed one of the watch reports forwards, this was dated last night.

"Her dear girl, Elly. Missing after being sent on a simple errand for the Magistrate." his voice turned to a growl, and Lidia sat up abruptly, snatching the paper from the table.

"_You sent Elly down tae him?!" _she hissed, and Kull folded his hands over his chest, meeting her furious gaze with one that was cold, detached.

"I did. She's your best. I had planned to hire an adventurer of sorts to go after her should our friend the Magistrate take the bait, a mercenary perhaps. But circumstances have granted me this stalwart warrior of light to use in their stead."

"Aye but, she's only a wee lass..."

"Indeed. A wee girl who followed the 'Bandit Queen'." Kull countered pointedly, his chin raising as if he dared her to defy him on that "Emulated her every way she could, ever eager to prove herself." he continued and Lidia's eyes sank and she nodded, Bart's face twisted in distaste at the gambit. Elly had been on her way here before, for _this _task. Bart's jaw tensed visibly as he almost spat his response,

"Nobody touches your children, do they?" a biting sardonic tone to his voice that drew Kull's eye back to him, gaze flashing dangerously. The two men squared off there, the tension that had been building the entire discussion coming to a head.

"Nay Ser Knight, no one." he answered grimly; "And the Magistrate will be an object lesson as to why."

"A lesson you taught, endangering said child," Bart added stiffly, and Kull nodded.

"A necessary sacrifice. You're a military man, Ser Knight." he stated and his eyes were once again fully detached, almost inhumanly so. "Casualties are inevitable."

"Spare me." Bart responded acidly, moving to stand "You have secured my aid, but not my approval." his tone was openly hostile, nostrils flaring over his bristling mustache. "Children are never soldiers."

"Ah, Ser Bart." Kull said, rising as well, taking a draw from his pipe; "That is where you are wrong. Children are the best soldiers, because good men so terribly fear harming them -- and it makes the most evil of us so very easy to spot."

Bart glowered at the thief, the two men facing off over the desk, eyes locked before Kull raised a hand. "Time is of the essence, Ser Bart. Do you wish to engage me in a tiresome moral debate I will dance wildly around on technicalities, or do you wish to save the girl"?" he asked in a rousing timber, clenching his fists and shaking them. "If it was not her it'd be another, likely one not nearly so spry. Every fortnight like the turn of the moon disappearances happen." he spoke, his voice speeding up rapidly as his smiled widened, "Then just like that when I send out a lamb to lure the lion, you show up in order to brave its den." he grinned and put his pipe to his mouth.

"Serendipity is a lovely business partner."

Bart curled his hands into fists, feeling more and more full of that black, clawing, snarling rage - bubbling inside of him like a poisonous pitch at this grinning ne'er'-do-well openly manipulating him, and what made it burn all the worse for him was that it was going to work.

"I don't like the way you played the game, Kull." Bart said plainly, planting his knuckles down on the desk. The older man laughed, mouth wide and teeth on display in a fierce grin of triumph.

"Played, and won. I do appreciate when problems resolve themselves like this," he said, tilting his head back to look at Lidia. "You should thank the boy, his gormless honor saved both of us from a rather unpleasant situation you caused." he laughed, eyes twinkling. Lidia pulled her hood closer over her face, an irritated paleness to her features.

"Well, with that decided -- it's time for you to leave, Ser Knight," Kull stated with finality, pushing himself away from the desk, the two thick-necked men coming unbidden to his side, as he gestured to Lidia.

"Be a dear girl and escort our new employee out, I'll have the details pushed to you later this evening," he said, looking up and pointedly tapping the table. "Sundown, Ser Knight. Don't be late." and the two brutes pointedly opened the double doors to the ages-old counting house. Lidia jerked her chin at Bart, who stood, equipment clattering and collecting his axe from near the door.

"What an enlightening experience." Bart mused dully as he followed the svelte thief out the door, Kull having turned his back on them as soon as he'd finished speaking, completely dismissing them -- the two toughs shutting the doors firmly as soon as they'd left. Lidia sighed and blew out a long-held breath, looking up at the peeking sunlight through the warehouses.

"Well, not dead. Gonna 'ave tae rustle back some trust, but not dead." she said, shaking her head as she glanced up at Bart from under her hood. "Don't feel bad, laddie. Kull's sharper than most. I almost can believe the ol' taffer somehow put it all in play so I'd see ye and start all o' this up." a shiver coursed through her as she added: "Th' man has the cold stones o' the Empty Queen herself."

"I assume then we're stuck with one another for the time being?" Bart asked, and Lidia wrinkled her nose up at him.

"Ach ye god, no." she said, "Not fer nothin', bully 'stache and all but I cannae be arsed to look at ye anymore, and I have work to do for our wee little bender t'night anyways." she answered and hooked her arm through his.

"I'll show ye back out."

Lidia did just that, and as before it was a dizzying mix of narrow paths and blind alleys that he swore had their layouts juggled, he was effectively lost without the nimble thief taking his arm and pulling him along behind her.

"How do you not get lost in here?" he asked as she thoughtlessly turned another corner, revealing the familiar clothesline-strewn alley that had led them in at first.

"Kinda like findin' yer way 'round to the privies in the dark, really," she answered, an impish grin on her face, the light gleaming off her razor-edged smile like knives - the taut-bodied, short, red-haired little thief's grins had a literal edge to them.

"Anyhow." the thief looked around; continuing "I cannae get ready wit' you trundlin' around behind me like a bellows an' ironworks, so git. Go be a paladin somewhere else for a bit." she said, giving him a shooing motion.

"How will I find you?" he asked bluntly and she smiled and faded back into the shadows of the alley, only her shimmering eyes visible as she vanished from view.

"Oh dinnae worry Hayseed, I'll find ye."

Then she was gone. He blew out a breath, running his fingers through his hair, looking at the sun he realized it was barely an hour past noon at best, early to rise, early to toil indeed. His gut rumbled, reminding him that he'd burned quite a heavy amount of fuel in the exploits of the day. Hefting his axe and helm, he made his way back towards the parts of town he knew, the quiet of the more packed wards behind the trade streets was serene -- a crystallized moment of peace after a swirling maelstrom of conflict. Thrusting the weapon's haft back through his belt -- he took his time. He knew Nazir and his friends would be worried, but to say the day had been full would be an understatement, the big knight needed a bit of time to himself. He needed to collect his thoughts.

~ ~ ~

The Mythril Mare got its name from the sign, fashioned apparently by a sidhe smith in years past as an answer to a debt. It was gleaming mythril or 'sidhe silver', rendered to such detail that it appeared to almost breathe - tiny beads of moisture even visible on the rampant equine's gleaming metal eyes. The rest of the property, however, was comfortably humble. A workman's inn, Bart and his father had stayed here many times in the years before he was admitted to the Abbey, and he knew the proprietor well, likely the only soul he could say he knew well in the city, so bustling and busy was it.

The bell over the door rang as he stepped inside, pausing to look at the rack of hats, cloaks, and coats hanging by it, and hooking his axe over one with his gauntlets and helmet. The inn's common room was mostly empty, the Mythril Mare was unusual in that it served both as a taproom and an inn - three stories of rooms, both private and communal for workers. The smell of stewing cabbage and lamb graced his nose and his mouth watered. A few workmen looked up at him, nodding respectfully but busy with meals or drinks. The floor was scattered with rushes here and there on the boards to collect mud, heavy stone walls with wooden joists framed the ceiling and a massive fireplace sat at one end of the common room, running straight to the top of the building. The walls were covered with odds and ends, bric-a-brac of the common man so familiar to him now he scarce noticed it.

"Oh, I'm sorry milord I did not see you come in, Is there anything I can do to he-OH!" came a woman's voice from behind him towards the kitchens, her sentence dying in a surprised gasp as he turned around. She was well into her middle years, soft around the middle with the weathered skin and corded arms of a woman that worked, her hair tied back in a braid streaked with gray through its mousy brown locks. Warm blue eyes sparkled up at him as the older woman touched her hand to her mouth in surprise.

"Dear me, Bart! Is that really you in there?" the woman exclaimed, reaching a hand out to touch the Eye-and-Horn device on his breastplate, he laughed tiredly.

"Yes, yes it's me. Hello Mila, it's been a few years," he answered, and she nodded.

"Yes, quite a few... your father was here just last season, said you were big as a house now and I see that was truer than he let on! A proper lord now even," she said, her woodsy accent soft in her O's and A's.

"No, no just a Knight-Brother, that's all." he corrected her with a bit of embarrassment, and she scoffed.

"Oh, if that's all." she chided him, taking his arm; "Come, come, sit down, what can I do for you? Surely there's far nicer places now that you're so..." she groped for the words as she guided him to a chair, pausing and choosing another, heavier seat for him.

"Titled?" Bart supplied, and she nodded.

"Yes, that'll do." she agreed, and looked at him with expectant eyes, the big man leaned heavily on the table, shaking his head.

"It's been a trying day, and I want to more than anything - be far, far away from titles and responsibility for a few moments," he said, and she grinned at him in understanding, folding her arms beneath her bosoms.

"Well then Bart." she said, pointedly leaving off the 'Ser'. "What can I do to lighten the load for you today?" she asked, and the big man sat back heavily in the chair, meeting her eyes with a steady gaze.

"Mila my friend, I am so, so hungry." he said, and there was a surprising... hollowness to his voice as he said that, his nostrils flared as he inhaled; "Is that your cabbage soup I smell?" the question made her lips bloom in a smile on her tanned, florid face.

"I'll bring you a bowl, and some bread too, I just took it from the oven," she said, flour dusting the front of her apron as if to confirm its freshness. He smiled at her, the idea sounded like pure heaven. She bustled away, and it took mere moments, he had enough time to cast his eyes around again, taking in the small crowd and familiar sights, it was a quiet place, never that busy but always making ends meet. There was a solidity here, a comfortable permanence.

"Here you are, a bigger bowl than usual -- there's more of you than there used to be," she said cheerily, sliding a steaming bowl of the chunky stew before him, shredded cabbage cooked down into a broth of tomatoes and stock, carrots, potatoes, and garlic swirled around savory minced lamb and chopped leaks - the heady aroma practically made his vision tunnel as he scooped up the rough wooden spoon and tucked into it, the implement heaping with a steaming morsel, the fatty juices of the meat melding with the broth and swirling in a pearlescent sheen of delightful oils.

"You're lucky." she mused, drumming her fingers on her chin; "I almost didn't get to make this today, something happened to my usual cabbage delivery, the greengrocer was beside himself!" she said, chuckling a bit. Bart paused, embarrassment flooding him as he remembered the cabbage cart during his chase with Lidia, she met his eyes and waved him off; "No, no don't worry I have plenty to go around, eat, eat!" she urged, and he put the spoon to his lips... and felt what could only be described as relief wash over him. His hollow stomach sang its desires as the sweet and savory broth rolled across his tongue. He barely tasted the first bite before he was already into his second.

He wolfed it down like he was bottomless, the soup tasting like never before -- he relished the meat's tenderness as he bit into it, and the potatoes crumbled on his tongue in perfectly-cooked softness. He barely spared his family friend a glance as he ate with increasing fervor. Every bite didn't seem like enough and exploded with tastes and textures he'd never noticed before -- the firmness of the carrots, the gently soft-to-the-bite texture of the cabbage - and the meat... yes the meat most of all, tender and lean and minced just-so to allow it to be swallowed easily, yet shred beneath his teeth in a satisfying way as he chewed. His brow furrowed intensely as he spooned mouthful after mouthful, licking bits from his fingers and mustache as he tore a steaming hunk from the fresh bread, chewing noisily... and it was then he looked up. Mila was staring at him, a hint of fear in her eyes, the workmen at their other tables also had paused to stare, sun-baked faces and sunken eyes touched by wariness and concern.

"Y-you weren't jesting about being hungry..." Mila murmured in a small voice, he realized then he was hunched over the bowl, his demeanor, his posture, and bearing all possessive, confrontational -- even as she said it he felt his eyes narrow, flicking to her wringing hands as if for a scarce moment, he expected her to attempt to take his meal from him, fight him for the savory morsels in the bowl. Before he could process it or even respond she stepped back and nodded.

"I'll bring you something to drink." she said nervously, and excused herself while Bart immediately set back into his food, devouring everything he was given in single-minded pursuit, and why shouldn't he? His mind focused on the food, he deserved it, he'd worked hard, chased down that thieving little wretch, and made her pay for her crimes. Why should she be so surprised that he was hungry? She worked hard, she knew how the belly emptied with effort. He grumbled under his breath as he mopped the heel of the bread through the remains of the soup, crunching down on the crusty end with relish -- he deserved a good meal, a little relaxation... his eyes cast about the common room again, the workmen's eyes avoided him, and the young barmaid who'd escaped his notice before bit her lip and looked away from his gaze, one of Mila's daughters? Granddaughter perhaps? Her husband had passed when he was young, she'd never remarried... she was vulnerable, she should be protected. Same as the young, dun-haired girl his gaze lingered on...

"Ah, I see you've noticed Marie!" came Mila's voice, thumping a wooden tankard down in front of him with one hand, a pitcher with the other, the familiar scent of the city's common small ale wafting to his nose and breaking his focus. Clearing his head even, he shook it and looked up at her in something of a daze, wiping his mouth and taking the tankard from her.

"Y-yes, sorry. My eyes wander when my mind does," he answered, feeling suddenly very off. The hunger he had abated a great deal, and so had his... other thirsts, his brow furrowed as he lifted the tankard, the cool, crisp flavor of the light beverage washing the taste of the food and his own doubts from his mouth.

"Always did, you would follow any motions while you thought as a boy. Like a hunting dog." she said, smiling at him as they returned to some kind of center, Bart leaning back in his chair; "Pyotor always said you were sharper than you looked, he'd have been proud to see you like this." she smiled, kissing a small, rough-hewn emblem of a swirled horn topped by a crown that hung about her neck -- a common holy symbol of the working folk. The emblem struck him, filled his mind with the hours of study and piety he'd been given - and a humbling wash of humility poured through him, shaming him for the wandering thoughts from before. He visibly relaxed, shaking his head as he rested the tankard in his lap.

"Pyotor was a good man. Father misses playing dice with him," his baritone voice level and calm again as he took a breath, steadying himself... clearly, he had been more shaken by his encounters that day than he thought. Something flickered at the edge of his vision. He looked up to Mila again, glanced to the side towards movement... and his eyes widened.

Antlers. Bone. Teeth. Black Eyes. Deep as pits. Fingers too long, too sharp reached for her from the edge of his vision, reached for him. He blinked as a skull-like visage parted an impossible maw, cold fear cut through his guts and he turned sharply towards the fleeting horned shape and saw... nothing. The hair on his neck stood on end and he was suddenly at full alert, he blinked again and saw... a rack of antlers above the fireplace, shadows flickered across them. Mila looked taken aback, he was half out of his seat, the tankard held like a knuckleduster.

"Bart, dear... are you quite ok?" she asked him, shrinking back from the larger man. The workmen as well shrank away. A few left coins on the table and excused themselves to the door. Bart had no answer for her, was he going mad? Had he been struck in the head during the chase? He set his teeth and sighed, shaking his head. He sank back heavily to the chair, his armor clattering as he laid a hand over his eyes.

"I... I am just overwhelmed I think, Mila. It has been a trying journey already, I had to kill several men on my way here. Brigands, threatening travelers on the road. Perhaps it... unsettled me more than I realized." he rationalized, but even as he said it he knew it to be a lie -- to her and himself. To her credit, the woman covered her mouth in mild shock.

"Oh my dear Bart... that sounds horrible," she said, moving closer to him again, taking his hand. "It is good you were there. You always were a doughty boy. I'm sure the travelers were glad to have you on hand." she said, Bart frowned.

"What of the Brigands I killed?" he asked cautiously, and her mouth set in a hard line.

"What of them? I am an old woman, Bart. I've seen death. Men like that die bloody, it's the way of things. If it were not your hand, it would have been someone else." she said and cupped his cheek a moment. "Don't fret over it, Pyotor would have been there with a stout cudgel and a gut full of fire in your same place and I loved him for that," she reassured him. It felt hollow. Something more was afoot, something was wrong. Still, he smiled for her and handed her the bowl. The heavy crockery concealing the slight quaking in his hands as he checked the periphery of his vision again, the image of that bone-faced shape haunting him, eluding his mind... it had in some impossible way, been familiar...

"Could I have a second helping, perchance?"

She smiled back. It was once again genuine. His in return was not.

~ ~ ~

Time passed with idle conversation over his second helping as he remained alert for the apparition that had come before his eyes, he smiled and laughed but it was clear that Mila could see the haunted, hollow look in his gaze around the room. He ate and yet... didn't quite feel full, but stopped for appearance's sake, ignoring the continuing gnaw of hunger he felt, much like the morning before after that terrible dream.

He paid upfront, good copper pennies despite Mila's protests -- he and his father always paid fairly, didn't matter that they were friends. He mused silently as he left the inn that perhaps he should be kinder to Naima about her economic acumen in these situations. It was only good business. He wandered a bit beyond, carrying his axe lazily over his shoulder, less walking than meandering as his mind wandered across the events of the day. He found himself dull and unfocused, a haze covering his mind. His feet guided him as his mind followed the dark paths he'd trod in so few days, the faces of the men he'd killed bright in his mind, Parias' icy stare, and even more frigid words. The death of Fahad in the ambush, death... suffering in general. He knew in his heart that his world was kept good by the blood and deeds of men of principle, but to actively take part in it shook him. He felt himself wavering inside already, so much of his training had prepared him for the grim calculus of war -- but he felt woefully unprepared for the battle fought on the fields of his soul.

His boots scraped suddenly against a stony surface, tough and unyielding and he found himself looking up by reflex, his mindless wandering had drawn him in circles towards the center of town -- to the Cathedral of Our Lord In Ivory. His gaze climbed the structure, its three pointed arches leading to the interior drew the eye up to the central rose window, both filled and flanked by leaded stained-glass windows depicting the Lord in Ivory's Promise and rampant unicorns reared at the edges as its twin bell towers rose in the air. Flying buttresses supported a tall, narrow roof, and gargoyles wrought of helmed dark fae hung from spouts at the end, eyes downcast from the glory of the main building in an oddly respectful tilt, humanity's grim allies at the edges of space and time keeping watch. The rest of the building was an edifice of crenelations, arches, and noble statuary of saints, soldiers, and paladins. He felt a pull low in his gut drawing him up the stairs, around him a few dark-frocked clergymen milled with commonfolk, discussing the scriptures and the day's events as he crossed beneath the central arch, a sad-eyed man in gilt armor looking down on him, an artistic rendering of The First Paladin and his great and terrible blade.

He paused there, and a chill shook him as he passed that holy eidolon. There was a sense of pressure as he approached it, its inscription written at its base seeming to demand his eyes' attention:

'Come ye, weak of sinew, tired of spirit, I will shield ye with mine body, and defend thee with mine blood. Be warned ye fell and fair, for mine blade reaps the wicked and mine might smites the unclean.'

The words were carved in stone and gilt brightly, the statue itself hewn much the same -- all but for its eyes, both orbs of fine, gleaming gold that peered down with sadness and resolve at every soul that passed the threshold beneath its feet. The pressure there built until Bart felt it as practically a physical force, he gasped quietly as he set his body against it and pushed through, stumbling slightly as he did so and feeling... strangely lighter. A few priests looked upon him with oddly concerned eyes a moment as he looked down at himself then back up at the statue - as if something that had weighed upon him had been left at the line drawn by the First Paladin's stone-hewn blade. Be that as it may, the entrance was empty of all but himself and his wan shadow, the experience shook him and he moved forwards up the aisle.

The inside of the cathedral was well-lit by sunlight and yet still felt warmly dim, the glow of the stained-glass windows full of deep yellows and ribald reds, casting a ruddy color across the area and giving the cool stone a homey feel that drew you in as he proceeded up to the primary altar. Standing before it and casting his eyes up to the central window, its stained-glass imagery depicting the Triumvirate of Warrior, Mother, and Maker: The First Paladin, The Unicorn who granted him her Blessing, and The White God who gave upon the Unicorn her Grace. The latter represented by a geometric ivory crown beset with a single, lidless golden eye. He felt... small before the powerful imagery and found himself sinking to his knees before the altar, his axe laying across the step before him as he stared upwards.

Bart wasn't a deeply pious man. He believed, who didn't? The power of Our Lord in Ivory was without doubt - he'd seen it heal, seen it smite. He felt it here, tangible, real. He carried no doubts... but he was a man from humble beginnings, he had milled grain with his father and read the Words of White over bedtime drowsiness. He'd learned scripture of course, but he'd never truly embraced it. Not like others had, not like Lucian had, or their Lord Protector. Their faith wrapped them like a halo... he instead, wore his like armor. It was a utilitarian thing, it girded his heart and soul against doubt, against darkness... was it not enough?

"Please my lord o God... grant me strength. I doubt... myself." he whispered, hands clasped suddenly in prayers as he lowered his head, his lips stumbling as he spoke the prayers in the tongue of heaven, the archaic language was difficult but... the focus on the structure and syntax of the pleas focused his mind. Unbidden, he felt moisture on his face. Tears fell, streaking his cheeks as he looked up at the image of the First Paladin, one hand rested over his heart, which was rendered powerfully over his armor ringed in a halo of light - his other hand raised his great blade above him.

His gaze went further, the sudden fit of weeping pouring from him as a dam within him broke. The anger, that black poisonous rage ebbed from him like venom from an open wound as he stared up upon the visage of The Unicorn. He stared long, eyes fixed, unwavering. Before his gaze flashed all he'd already done, good and ill on such a scant few days; the faces of those dead at his hand, the faces of those he'd saved, the look of defeat on Lidia's face when she'd been caught, the fervor of conviction in Kull's eyes... the idea of a little girl in most dire danger. His teeth set then against the flood of emotions, still murmuring prayers in the angel's tongue, rising to a peak as he delved deeper into the ugly fear, anguish, and doubt that still resided there. He was young -- he was untested, unsure of himself, and already these doubts so soon weighed on him... was this the true test? Not the journey, not the Unicorn's blessing... but to find himself in this struggle? To find the center to which he would hold? His prayers grew frantic and he met the gaze of the Unicorn upon the glass, her own golden gaze looked down upon him with love and affection, her gaze bore into him and offered no judgment -- even as glass he felt a surge within himself as he looked upon her, a clarity of purpose came with it as he ended his prayers with a deep, quiet breath, exhaling it in a simple word.

"Amen."

It hit him then, the wash of cool power... he had felt the presence of holy energy before, he'd been healed and blessed... but never before had he felt it personally, and never before had he prayed with such devotion. Perhaps later he would think of it as a trick of his mind, a simple catharsis from a journey fraught with change. Perhaps.

But in the moment, he felt the touch of the divine. He felt a hollow well within him fill with something akin to love. He felt power. Might. His heart swelled and he found himself weeping again at his own folly, to doubt himself so... it was early yet. Perhaps he needed to simply accept that he would stumble. The means to stand back up were still here.

"My son prays as a warrior." came a quiet voice. Bart's eyes tracked to his side, the figure of the Bishop stood there, Bart drew about himself to return to kneeling but the old man shook his head, instead taking a place on a pew nearby.

"No words, my son. I merely wished to acknowledge you. Faith is difficult for those of us who wear arms in the name of the lord. Yours is one of dozens these old eyes have seen. I have ushered all of you to Her side, knowing it is a burden and blessing both." he said, the old man's body stooped, his miter heavy on his brow.

"Bear the burden well my son. She needs you." was all he said, and then lowered his head in prayer as well. Bart had nothing to say in any case, the experience had refreshed him. His mind was clear, the troubles and travails of the day crystallized in his mind. There was a dark presence in Lachheim, it was connected to Lidia and her disappearing children. He may not have the Blessing yet, he may only be armed with instinct, strength of arms, and grit -- but of this, he was suddenly completely sure. He grasped his axe and stood, offering one last look to the Unicorn's golden eyes before he strode from the Cathedral. The pressure at the door parted easily this time.

He had friends to find. A girl to save. No time for wallowing.

~ ~ ~

"So you're going to just.. show up at the Magistrate's house and demand of him this girl?" Nazir's voice was incredulous. The Merchant and his sister sat across from him, Rashid near at hand in another chair, burly arms folded over his chest. The Larkscall Lounge was far and above one of the more well-heeled establishments, its hand-carved tables and brightly painted walls spoke of its mercantile clientele, and it was here that Bart had reconnected with the Rezarian merchants and shared with them the events of things, in full.

"I am less worried about that, and moreso of the apparition you spoke of." Naima said, her lower lip pouting in thought as she mulled it over. "It matches some depictions of the creature my dear husband mentioned, this 'Wendigo'. I do not like the idea of such a being appearing to you."

"I'm not too fond of it myself." Bart agreed, sipping from the silver tankard before him, the table beer they'd ordered was crisp and tasted of apples and nutmeg, quite refreshing. "Could it be hunting me for slaying its minions perhaps?" Naima shrugged and Rashid made a low rumble in his throat.

"No, the stories I heard say it does not have many mortal concepts of vengeance. If anything it may find your... faith an appealing flavor, and seeks to enhance it with fear. Like salt to the meat." the large man said, stroking his beard in contemplation. "If this is even the Wendigo, there are many other ugly creatures and ugly spirits that crave and hunger, and are fond of the motif of bone and darkness." he added, and Nazir nodded.

"Indeed, there's more than a few of the darker Sidhe who revel in such aspects. You could have simply attracted the attention of some capricious Unseelie fairy that doesn't know when to quit." the dandy merchant added hopefully. "We need not assume it is some brutal agent of the Empty Queen here to harass you."

"God willing," Bart said, nodding his head. He felt lighter than he had since the brigands on the road, the pall of death he'd carried seemed to be gone, and even the nightmare's grip had loosened on his mind, he felt focused. Sharp. That clarity gave him an urgency he hadn't before. He felt the deaths of the men on the road keenly and without the reproach of his personal shame -- in its place was a righteous indignation that smoldered hotter by the moment.

"Well, back to the matter at hand." Naima said, sipping at the cup of tea before her, her dark eyes flashing at Bart; "Your plan is atrocious, if the Magistrate is indeed in league with these disappearances or worse -- whatever specter haunted your steps earlier, walking right in the door would be foolish -- it clearly marked you leaving Lidia's little hideout."

Bart raised his eyebrows at that, nodding hesitantly but his face set in contemplation "True... I had seen nothing before that, perhaps whatever it is responsible for the vanishing children is trying to frighten me off." he said, setting his jaw grimly.

"It makes sense." Rashid agreed, his own lips in a hard line; "Little else could be gained from stolen children this deep into the Heartlands, unless like they said... they have found a dark fae to gift them to." he said, tapping his nose; "Remember they are our allies in war, but not all of them are so friendly otherwise. For much of early history, we were their prey as well as that of the Empty Queen's monsters."

"A history so easily forgotten by the common man," Nazir added, swirling his tankard.

"This didn't feel like some capricious wood dryad or hungry nature spirit." He said, frowning down at his cup with a pause before looking up; "Not that I'd know what that felt like anyways, but I cannot imagine the raw sensation of... dread is related."

"Explain." Rashid demanded, folding his arms across his barrel-like chest, face austere. Bart dragged a hand through his short-cropped hair in consternation. How to describe such an encounter in the words of men when it was spoken screaming into his mind?

"It felt like..." his face screwed up as he remembered all of the pervading emotions before, everything towards the poor barmaid, his old family friend. "Hunger, pure bone-gnawing hunger. Not gluttony, not hedonism but craving. Like the presence was starving and could not be sated, starving for everything, food, warmth." he coughed indelicately and looked at Naima. "Flesh."

"Everything indeed." She replied with an arch look, her bow-shaped mouth turning down into a frown of distaste. "This still doesn't rule out the fair folk, but it does narrow the list to some unsavory characters within it I'd rather not speak of out loud." she said plainly, Rashid nodding and Nazir's expression growing distant and flat.

"I'm not so sure..." Bart hedged, frowning into his tankard, he wanted to cede to the other's greater experience but his gut instinct told him otherwise, this... thing was no ravening wild fairy with a penchant for torture, it felt older. It felt uncomfortably familiar. "I feel like even a mad fae would know a Knight-Brother of the Order would be galvanized by such theatrics, not made afraid."

"No sense in fretting so hard upon it, we have not time to explore every possibility. My dear brother Bart has already committed himself to the cause, so we must needs see it through." the dandy merchant concluded to a terse nod from his sister in agreement, setting his mug down upon it.

"Agreed. Kull has already tasked me with a part I must play in this scheme however, I don't know that I can change it all so much." Bart added, raising his cup as a pretty serving girl came by, refilling everyone's tankards. Nazir grinned at her and gave a playful wink that made the young lass titter at him as she went by, bustling past to give him a good view of her backside as he went, his sister's tired expression saying everything that needed to be said in response to her charismatic brother's antics.

"No, this creature has clearly marked you in some manner. We can expect the Magistrate's involvement - whatever it may be - has made him already aware of your coming." Rashid said, stroking his curling mustache; "We, however, are free to move as we wish."

"You know, the Magistrate may just be interested in that lovely cache of Khorrit Honey you keep stashed away in the cart, dear sister," Nazir said thoughtfully, tapping his chin and leaning back, putting his heels up on the table as his sister eyed him sternly.

"I use that in my poultices, dear brother." she said, taking her teacup in hand and pausing as she considered the cup, her eyebrows raising. "You intend to distract him with discussions of wares and sundries?"

"Just so, if this Magistrate is so eager to move bodies to and fro from this city, perhaps I can quietly suggest one tiny caravan going to the borderlands would be an excellent vector for his ill-gotten gains and in doing so..." Nazir continued on, detailing an elaborate plan as Bart looked out the window, watching the sun dipping rapidly. A sort of irritation built in him, not the grisly black rage he'd felt before -- but that growing indignation at the audacity of this creature, this Magistrate to put their hands upon the innocent. His hand gripped around his tankard and suddenly, quick as lightning he slammed it down upon the table, a fount of ale leaping from its mouth to spatter the plates and cups as his voice rang out in a sharp bark of "NO!"

The table froze, and all eyes turned to Bart as he wiped his mouth. Pushing his chair away from the table.

"No more plans, no more games. An innocent child is at risk, and my dithering to attempt to ruffle no feathers and upset no one will only lead to more death and suffering," he said, his tone all but written in granite as the others sat too stunned to argue. Coins from his reclaimed purse clinked onto the table as he rose, reaching for his effects nearby the wall.

"Friend Bart, surely you see the reason in my plan!" Nazir called to him, the big paladin paused, hand on the haft of his axe as it hung by his chair, its smooth wood felt familiar now, and the weapon's weight a comfort.

"It is very reasonable Nazir, but I fear the time for good men to be reasonable has long passed in this city." he said, and drew himself up as he collected his gauntlets and helm, looking at the others.

"It is time for good men to do some very unreasonable things."

He marched from the Larkscall then, the protests of his friends ignored. They meant well, but they had not seen, had not felt what he had. Fahad's dead eyes haunted him, the reeking presence of the skull-faced being, the grinning coldness of Kull's calculating face - they had brought to the surface one of the longest-standing idiosyncrasies of Bart's life.

He could not abide a bully.

The others were more traveled, more seasoned -- he would be wise to heed their advice, to manage things quietly, softly. Wise men died safe and peaceful of old age, never having risked anything.

Bart was not a wise man. Bart was angry. Bart felt in him a fury at the sheer cheek of this corrupt Magistrate to operate so close to where he lived, to have such horrors happening under his nose, the entire time he'd lived here he'd been blind with blissful ignorance. His eyes were open now, and what he'd seen filled his mouth with bile. Kull was a menace, but he owed him a bitter debt of gratitude for making him aware of how innocent he'd yet been. His boots clicked on the cobblestones as he marched towards the setting sun, he knew where the Magistrate's home would be, the upper quarter, across the bridge and furthest from both the outer gates and inner canals, he'd seen it in passing as a child and it would be a simple task to bend the ear of a passing guardsman or citizen for its exact address. His fist clenched firmly around his axe as he leaned into his march, leaving his friends watching him go at the door of the Lounge.

"Bart, wait!" It was Nazir again, and he didn't pause. He did not want to see his friend's face. His newfound resolve was brittle, it had yet to see the fire to forge it to steel. Turning the corner, his friend's calls quieted as the rumble of Rashid's voice barely reached him.

"He has to make his own choices."

~ ~ ~

The anger did not so much as fade as harden into purpose, a cold, calculated fury that rested comfortably under his breastbone, spurring him along into a determined march. Ordering his thoughts. It was a comfort, a relief. His mind felt clear.

Cutting through the market district again sped him along to his destination, the late hour showing all but the most common or desperate vendors already closed up. On a thought, he paused halfway there at a small textiles stall, coins changing hands with a grateful young mother for a large, completely unremarkable traveler's cloak. She'd babbled protests as he'd given her a silver mark for it merely on lack of any pennies in his purse, but he'd refused to take no for an answer as he pulled the drab stone-brown cloak on over his armor and surcoat. She did not need to know he'd chosen it specifically to conceal what he was, and what he was carrying - the mantled garment doing a reasonable job of masking the bulk of his armor as simple burly workman mass to a casual glance in the dim light.

Newly garbed, he continued his purposeful march, both cloak and surcoat together now muffling much of the clatter of his armor and concealing his axe looped through his belt. It was hardly a complete disguise - but he needed only to pass a cursory examination, not an interrogation. Already it proved its worth - passing few people paid as much attention to him swaddled in the unremarkable cloth - his bright armor and emblazoned surcoat were impressive on purpose -- intimidation was a valuable battlefield asset, and the Order made use of it.

He passed through the markets eastward and into the Manor District, eponymous for its many large homes and their sturdy walls, each a small compound to itself where the city's elite and many of the long-standing mercantile concerns and their guilds housed themselves. He turned a corner as he inspected one of the signs, and there was a stirring behind him.

"Oh aye, ye tryin' to switch up ye career then Hayseed?" came Lidia's rolling brogue from his side, and sitting almost invisible in the shadows of the very same sign he was inspecting was the red-haired thief, looking very much not like herself. Instead of her midriff-exposing leathers and face-covering hood and scarf, she wore a demure smock and heavy, comfortable peasant boots. Her red hair and freckled face were pushed back artfully in a style common among married women of the lower classes, and she wore some common wood and bone jewelry on her wrists and neck, looking unremarkable -- and nothing at all like the rough-and-tumble tomboy he'd chased through the markets earlier that day.

"Dinnae quit yer day job," she continued, smirking at him playfully; "Ye walk like a military sort, it's in yer bones." The challenge in her expression was plain, and perhaps it was only his recent experiences speaking -- Bart figured he had found the proper way to handle this particular call.

"Quite to the contrary, the look of a housewife suits you fine." he mused to her, causing the red-haired woman's face to color darkly as she twisted her lips in an edged grin at him. She'd never admit it openly, but both of them were aware he was up another point again. He'd made her measure and her his more than once this day.

"So you know where this Magistrate's home is?" Bart asked bluntly as he walked, turning his head away as he cleared the awkwardness and his throat with a cough. She nodded, shifting herself to be closer to him, her body language changed as she stood to do so -- she was talented at deception, and her whole demeanor seemed different now - gone was the stiff-shouldered, hawkish paranoia that'd greeted his gaze, in its place was a soft, almost meek fluidity. A peasant girl's submission to god, class, and country.

"Aye, ye were on th' right path." She said, looping her arm in his in a sisterly fashion, looking up at his hooded countenance, her voice shifting slightly. The lilting brogue was still quite present, but it had lost its ragged edge, it flowed easily with an exaggerated undertone of innocence that played to the slight mockery in her eyes; "I was waitin' for my great big brother tae show, I am jus' beside meself with worry for my girl!" she exclaimed, blinking back fake crocodile tears as she did. Bart scowled at her a bit in response.

"You take too much joy from deception." She grinned.

"If ye are good at somethin', why not enjoy it?"

The walk went in silence as she guided him down the path by his arm, pulling or pushing him lightly as they walked further into midtown. The houses here were massive, more and more miniature castles the deeper they went. The cobblestone streets were neater and the pair passed more than a few city guardsmen, more than Bart had seen anywhere but at the gates. They followed the pair with their eyes as they passed, but so far made no move to stop them. Bart tensed at being observed so and grunted as Lidia subtly dug her elbow into the open joint under his armpit.

"Relax, as far as they care we're jus' a pair o' servants on walkabout. Iffin' ye keep lookin' like you expect them to stop us, they will." she hissed, looking up at him with a smile that covered the edge of irritation in her eyes as they rounded a corner into a massive, circular cul-de-sac - the street looping around an ostentatious fountain as wide as an inn depicting frolicking figures cast in bronze. It was at least a mile from start to finish, and at the end dead-center was a wide, massive estate - a palace, really. Its style was heavily in the Darrowmere aesthetic, the manor was more of a mansion, and the mansion more of a stunted fortress at that. It had literal _turrets_at the corners and tall vaulting buttresses. Bart did his best not to gape, the young knight-brother stunned by such a display of wealth. Truly, it rivaled all but the Radiant Order Redoubt for its defenses. Even its lush neighboring lots in the great circular walk were diminutive in comparison.

"Ah bit puffed up, ain't it?" Lidia added laconically from at his arm as she guided him to the heavy gate, situated along an iron-reinforced wall of whitewashed masonry that could probably hold a minor siege all on its own, two uniformed guards became alert as they moved towards them, standing up straight and their grips on their halberds becoming noticeably tighter. Bart recognized the easy way they held them and their light armor, these weren't the usual half-asleep conscripts you saw in the city guard - each of these men was a veteran.

"State your business." one barked in an authoritative tone, Bart's face mostly hidden beneath his cowl as Lidia took the lead, touching his arm.

"Ah, milord. My wee lass came here earlier in the night, and she's yet to turn up for supper. Ach I'm terribly sorry, I know his lordship paid her a pretty coin for her assitin' with his businesses but I worry when it gets dark, there's thieves and whatnot about." she said, and her whole demeanor had once again changed. Her voice was soft and hollow, a catch in her throat of fear and worry -- as if she'd break down into tears at any moment, her hands white-knuckling on the hem of her simple homespun dress. The two guardsmen looked at each other, one nodded and the other turned and knocked on the door to the gate, a slat slid open and he murmured.

"The kid from earlier, her mum's here." There was a murmur Bart couldn't quite catch in response and then slat slammed closed, the guardsman outside turning back to them.

"Wait here."

Bart and Lidia exchanged a glance but she gushed with gratitude at that; "Thank you milord!" but the two men had no eyes for her, both focused on Bart's fairly massive frame as he stood there in silence behind her. Lidia's gaze followed theirs surreptitiously and she smiled and leaned against him in a friendly sort, patting his shoulder beneath the long cloak.

"'Tis' just my brother, don't mind him. He's just worried about lil' Elly, and o' course meself." she said, smiling, Bart tried to smile... it looked ghastly with his clenched teeth. Covertly, Lidia trod on his foot. It didn't hurt - she was practically a feather to his mass - but he got the message.

"Cannot be too careful, neighbors," he said after a beat. The men didn't shift their gaze from him, or relax much. The tension between them was palpable, and not just because Bart easily had half a head's height and an equal amount more mass on each of them.

Just when it seemed one of them was about to either move on him or say something, the slat slammed open again with a loud clack of wood on wood. "His Worship will see them in the parlor." The slat slammed shut again, and the sound of a heavy crossbar being drawn back came to the ears as the gate swung wide, two more guards behind it set up on an escort track.

"This way."

They were led through a short yard, fountains flanked the path on either side and thick trees lined the yard and walls, further insulating the area from sight -- and sound. Indeed as the gate thundered closed behind them, it was like a thick blanket was laid over them. Nobody would hear anything from beyond that gate, loud parties, important business matters... screams. Lidia and Bart's gazes both met at that moment, both clearly realizing the danger they were in.

Escorted as they were through the foyer - equally as grand and lavish as the outside with expensive rugs and posh statuary at the corners - Lidia's eyes flicked to and fro nervously, clearly part of her act with her winsome smiles and wide-eyed looks. Bart followed behind her like a ponderous thundercloud, doing his best to move slowly to minimize the clatter and jingle of his harness under the thick cloak. A steward in a waistcoat and hose approached them with trepidation.

"May I take your cloak sir?" he said with a stiff air.

"No." Bart grated sternly and strode past him with the guards. The look the man gave him at his brusque tone was sharp enough to draw blood, but he remained silent. Perhaps some of that anger was still a bit hot inside of him.

They were led back beyond the grand staircases to a comfortably intimate parlor. It was centered around a large round table flanked by overstuffed chairs, large shelves lined with books, scrolls, and various minutia of station and high-class entertainment. Bart found none of it particularly engaging, 'hayseed' indeed. The guards paused before leaving, looking at them both.

"His Honor will be in shortly, don't touch anything."

"But where's my wee girl?" Lidia asked, real fear showing in her eyes as she approached the guardsmen, but they turned their backs on her in silence and shut the door rather abruptly. Bart's head tilted as he heard the unmistakable sound of the door being bolted from the other side.

"We're in trouble." He said, and the cutpurse jerked her head back up at him.

"Ye think, hayseed?" she snarled, gathering up her skirts a bit to bustle faster over to the other door on the other side, it clattered but was also firmly barred. She frowned and hissed through her teeth, looking up at him.

"I can pick this, dinnae worry." she said but then looked through the gap in the door and swore under her breath.

"Barred?" he asked knowingly, and she nodded, clearly seeing the crossbar through the thin gap in the door.

"They're onto us." he continued, and she nodded again and threw up her hands.

"Yea, yea they must be." she concluded, looking at Bart critically, shaking her head; "They didn't even search us, or ye in particular. Yer still wearin' enough steel for an ironworks and they didn't even blink at you," she complained incredulously.

"Perhaps they didn't notice?" he ventured with dubious hope as he glanced around the room - no windows, only two doors. He was confident if he had to, he could break one down... but it would be loud, and take time. Lidia snorted at that.

"I applaud ye attemptin' tae be subtle but I can hear ye clank like a fookin' dishbarrrel from 'ere. Ain't no way they didn't know ye're under arms, fook's sake I can see tae outline o' yer bloody axe through the cloak." she said exasperatedly.

"This isn't good." he agreed, reaching under his cloak and Lidia slapped his arm with a thwack, wincing as she hit the plates of his rerebrace, shaking her hand out.

"Stop that, if you start cuttin' hither and yonder we'll be up to our tits in pikes." she hissed, and he scowled at her - that anger flaring against his will - raising a hand up from his cloak, his gauntleted finger jammed directly at her face.

"If you hadn't been such a little shi-" he cut off as he heard the bar across the door shift, Lidia looking at it as she swung around, her eyes wide for a moment as she once again rapidly settled into the guise of the nervous, frightened peasant mother.

The door swung ajar, and in stepped a tall, lean man. Young for the station but older than both Bart and Lidia - in the early blush of his middle years at best. Handsome in a sinuous and sharp way - like an unadorned blade. His limbs were long and well-toned - body and build lean but clearly well-muscled beneath his finery - his sleek neck a pale pillar leading to an angular face centered around a strong Darrowmite nose, clean-shaven and ivory-skinned with piercing blue eyes the color of winter skies and short, well-oiled dark hair. His lips were bright and full and turned in a straight, hard line as the door closed behind him, two guardsmen there again flanking it.

"Ah, yes Your Worship, iffin' ye can spare her its time for Lil Elly's suppe-" the Magistrate cut her off with a raise of his long-fingered hand, he was dressed in a tight-fitting black and silver ensemble, a slashed-sleeve doublet and hose with a long buttoned waistcoat that hung past his hips.

"Please, spare me your trite deceptions," he said coldly, and his voice was a velvet baritone despite the frost. Bart's back straightened and Lidia's mouth closed around the rest of her sentence, the Magistrate steepled his fingers before him, looking between them both as if waiting to make sure they were done, with a gentle nod he continued.

"Kull's clumsy attempts to interfere with my plans were easy to suss out. Such a ham-fisted attempt, I mean really -- sending me a child cutpurse to 'run errands' for me? Please." he snorted delicately.

"My name is Mihai Aldea, son of Mikail Aldea, fifth Magistrate Lord of Lachheim in our line. You have invaded my home under false pretenses, violated my privacy, and interfered with my plans, all today for the first -- and last times." he said, turning to look towards Bart pointedly.

"As for you, Ser Bartholomus -- yes, I know your name - I know the names of everyone here, your families, friends, and even that strange little group of merchants you've been whiling away your time with. I am most disappointed in you." Bart's eyes widened and he shoved back the hood from his head, ripping the cloak away and tossing it aside. His armor gleamed in the candlelight as he set his teeth in a scowl.

"I care not for your disappointment, where is Elly? Where are the other children?" he snarled - and the Magistrate sighed - rolling his eyes as if this were a mere social argument, looking upon the burly, armored Knight-Brother as if he were no less than an unruly child acting out.

"Most of them are dead, a few might linger. Elly may still live, she was alive when I disposed of her but that rarely lasts long down there." he mused absently, shrugging gently in complete nonchalance. His eyes turned back up, and they were cold. Corpse's eyes almost, staring through Bart, past him actually... behind him? He turned his head to look and the tall man smiled slightly.

"You had such promise, I have not seen a member of Her ilk carrying the Touch of the Mother in many years, despite... his unwanted mishandling of everything, I thought that you might be brought to see things our way," he sighed in open disappointment, words that sent a chill through Bart. Lidia's eyes were wide, but her peasant girl guise was gone, her entire body taut for immediate action. The changeling's hands flexed into near talons - as if she was ready to rip someone's throat out bare-handed. The Magistrate took a casual step toward Bart.

"I know you've felt it. You're feeling it now aren't you?" he murmured in an almost loving tone. "The sweet, suffusing rage... the hunger." his voice throbbed and a long, much, much too long pink tongue ran across his lower lip. Bart's face reddened with anger, the veins in his neck standing out, teeth clenched in growing fury - and the Magistrate smiled only wider.

"Yes... there it is, I can see it in you. Clawing at that pitiful light inside, chewing at it, gnawing. You feel it gnawing yes? Nibbling away that foul radiance bit by bit until it can kiss the sweet, sweet succulence of your soul..." he shivered, his eyes lidded in actual pleasure, Lidia made a disgusted sound and Bart's eye's flicked to hers and she pointed at his groin, face twisted in disgust:

"The daffy shite has a fuckin' stiff-end over it." she hissed, and indeed there was a very obvious tent in the front of the man's hose, which only made his sick smile widen further - displaying perfect white teeth. Too perfect. Too straight. Too sharp.

"Ah, sharp eyes of yours, fey-child. I will enjoy eating them I think. I've always had a taste for foreign cuisine." he mused, apparently beyond shame... or just enjoying things too much. She recoiled from him with a scowl, making a warding sign across her heart.

"Come now, Bartholomus." He cooed at the Knight-Brother, turning his gaze back to him. "Embrace the hungers, the lusts... we'll share her, no need to kill her right away. The Mother is patient for her meals, we have time to enjoy her as any apex predator should..." he said, and Lidia spat directly at his face with a twist of her lips, and to Bart's visible revulsion: the man's body appeared to _ripple_sinuously with impossible fluidity as he leaned forward, and caught the wad of spittle in his own mouth, swallowing it pointedly. Lidia audibly retched at that.

"You foul creature." Bart snarled at him, feeling that now familiar tarry rage boiling up inside of him for sure - the sight causing the Magistrate to raise his arms in a welcoming gesture. In a flash, Bart was in action, his hand whipped around behind him, and in a single fluid motion his axe was free and swinging through the air. The blade's brutal shape howled like a mad beast through the intervening space as he stepped forward with a bellow of fury, swinging down in a picture of perfect form. He'd done a million practice swings at dummies in training, and never before had he been so sure of his aim, his grip, his angle, and his spacing -- it was over - the axe descended.

There was a wet, gruesome thunk of meat being cut, the axe dove into the Magistrate's neck from Bart's right at an acute angle, cutting and sinking in until he felt the now-familiar hitstop of the blade cutting brutally into the bone of the man's spine. Gore fountained, spattering Bart's white surcoat red and spraying his face with red mist. An unholy gurgling noise rose from his mangled throat - windpipe, meat, and bone visible and quivering - as the clearly dead man spasmed around the axe buried into his torso, lodged against his spine. Grimly Bart ripped his blade back out with a flourish of gore and a ribbon of flesh lifeblood sheeting across the tiled floor - leaving the sagging man to tip over and fall - his torso so neatly bisected in a cruel v-shape by the immense strength of the big man's blow that his heart and lungs pulsed their death-agony and gushed rivers of gore to the open air...

Yet, the man stood. He sagged a moment, staggered, and righted himself. Long-fingered hands reached up and almost artfully tipped his nearly-severed head back onto the stump of his neck. Lidia and Bart gaped, the former letting out a wordless scream of fear and defiance as the Magistrate's eyes opened and he smiled cruelly.

"Quite a blow, your arm is strong as your will." he said casually, and with gruesome efficiency, his flesh began to knit back together - smoothing over again like too-wet clay. He took a moment and pressed one delicate finger to his nose and blew a jet of gore from it, clearing his nostrils and daubing at them with a handkerchief. His clothing was ruined, but the man's lean body beneath it was suddenly quite whole.

"Truly, mightily struck. You did in fact, kill me quite soundly there." he mused fingering his ruined clothes with a frown before meeting Bart's gaze anew; "However, death doesn't quite have the same hold over me it once did, I fear."

Bart brandished his axe, Lidia pushing in behind him at his back, behind them the doors they'd entered from clacked open, two more guardsmen visible there. Bart gritted his teeth and looked to and fro, axe in hand, gore dripping from it still.

"Death may not, but we'll see how capable you are when I chop you into five different pieces and parcel you out to every kingdom in Northsea." the big knight-brother growled, and a moment's flicker of actual concern crossed the Magistrate's face before he smoothed it out.

"Ah," he said simply, steepling his fingers again. "Then I won't bother asking you again, such a shame. I'd thought perhaps I would welcome you to the Mother's embrace... but it simply won't do to have you be so... belligerent," he said, raising a hand and snapping his fingers.

"Kill the brute. Subdue the girl. I wish her mostly unharmed. No sense in ruining the meat."

Bart acted at once, snatching his helmet from his belt - he clapped down his visor and yanked the strap tight. Both hands quickly found the gore-spattered haft of his axe as he glared through the slit at the Magistrate, who simply smiled and melted away from him. Bart stepped after him, axe at high guard, yet just as quickly the knight-brother was faced instead with two wicked halberds - point-first - the two armed and armored guards pushing him back as the dark-haired monster faded away through the open door, grinning wide and mad -- and then he was gone.

A cry from behind him distracted him for a critical moment, the guard before him taking the opening to thrust gamely at Bart's face, aiming for his visor slit. The big man ducked his head at the last possible moment, the spear-like tip of the polearm throwing a burst of sparks as it struck the reinforced spine of his helmet, skittering off its rounded surface before the big soldier batted it away with his axe. He was forced into a rapid dance to the side to avoid a carefully timed thrust from his partner -- these weren't forest bandits with rusted weapons and jury-rigged armor, but seasoned soldiers working as a team.

He wasted no words, rotating around to place the thick, round table in the middle between the two guards and himself, he cast a look behind him, Lidia was darting around the other two guardsmen, both of who had put away their weapons - each carrying a simple arming sword for soldiers - in an apparent attempt to fulfill their master's wishes. The little cutpurse was as slippery now as she was evading Bart earlier that day, he watched for a moment as she dove between one's legs and came up, tangling her long homespun dress in her legs and swearing. Bart spat an ugly curse as he continued to rotate around the table with the two halberdiers, parrying another thrust as he saw the two free-handed men close on the tripped thief. Mind racing - Bart improvised.

Barely avoiding another thrust and earning a slice in his surcoat for the trouble that staggered him with the force, he snatched an unlit lantern from the tabletop. It was a large, glass-bulbed piece of absolute frippery made of heavy brass, and after sucking his gut back from another near-fatal stab from the men-at-arms halberd, he twisted his body in a powerful overhand throw, snarling in anger as it left his hand.

The lantern flew like a bolt, and smashed into the lead man-at-arms' skull like a shotput, causing him to cry out in pain as his head snapped violently to the side, blowing him to the ground under the force and giving Lidia space to scoot backward, the wild-eyed thief taking both hands to her dress' hem. The sound of ripping fabric was loud as she tore the trailing skirts free, leaving her shapely legs bare, but free to move.

"OH YE ARE IN FOR IT NOW YE FOOKIN' BARMY GOBSHITES!" she shrieked, and she fell upon the dazed man with her bare hands, driving strikes with stiffened fingers, knees, and elbows at vulnerable eyes, nose, throat, ears. She fought like a savage - she fought dirty.

Bart had no more time to spare for her defense after that - the two halberdiers had pressed their attack, fanning around the large table to strike him from opposing angles in staggered time, each striking at a different place to force him to parry and dodge off balance. He snarled something vile under his visor as he felt another nearly-mortal thrust deflect from his armor, blunted in its force by a last-moment evasion. He couldn't keep this up, they'd tire him out or simply pin him to the wall. He had to go on the offensive, but how? He paused a moment as he hopped back a step, and then saw it.

The table. The table.

Murmuring a quiet prayer, he ducked low again under another thrust, the second coming in right at his face, he rolled forward beneath it in a merry clatter of plates, feeling the weapon bounce hard off his armored back, another downward cut from his partner shattered a tile where his head had been as he came up beneath the table. The two men jabbed under it wildly - the immense wooden surface shielding him from direct assault. He winced as he felt the inaccurate stabs skitter off his plated arms and shoulders with painful force. Dropping his axe in a moment's motion - he braced both arms against its massive oak structure, jamming his gauntleted fingers beneath the base, planting his feet - and giving a great, mighty wrench upward from the knees. His muscles strained and he felt his joints scream, his lips split in a sudden roar of faith, of need:

"LADY, GIVE ME STRENGTH!"

His voice shook the walls, the bric-a-brac on shelf and table - the very men themselves as there was a crunch of tile and a shriek of splitting wood - and up came the table as his battle cry turned into a wordless roar of pure, primal fury, the table flipped forward, end over end, Bart's hands snapping high above his head as his whole body straightened beneath the table's mass - heaving it at the nearest man in the fray, who wide-eyed and stunned - tripped over his long-hafted weapon. Failing to get out of the way fast enough, the massive table came down on him like a strike from the heavens, crushing his lower half under the weight of its massive edge with a sickening crunch. His legs buckling with nigh-comical speed, both suddenly twisting in a horrible, mangling fracture - thighbones snapping like twigs as they bent askew midway up at horrible, unnatural right angles - Pale bone slick with gore visible as it ripped through flesh and cloth. The guardsman screamed, an inhuman, animal noise as he clawed at his ruined legs, lifeblood pumping out onto the tiled floor, screaming without end, his partner pale behind his steel cap, eyes wide a the gruesome spectacle.

Indeed everyone took pause at that -- except Lidia. The petite cutpurse was only shocked a moment, before she took the pause as an advantage and pulled the hemp belt from her ruined dress, winding it double over her hands quickly - she rolled out from under the shocked man-at-arms she'd been scrabbling with and looped it savagely over his throat. Driving both of her heels into his spine, the lithe girl's willowy body jerked the crossed belt tight around his throat tight. His head snapped back with a cry that quickly turned into guttural, strangling sounds as she wrenched with all her might -- and like that, the fight was back on.

Bart as well, was less shaken by the carnage he caused with his own hands and capitalized on the lull, snatching his axe back into both hands he rushed the remaining halberdier - who woke from his horrified daze just in time to dance back from Bart's first cleaving assault. The wounded man's screams did not die off as the burly knight-brother pressed his attack, blood on his armor and murder in his eyes. The swipes of his axe whistled a hairsbreadth from the man-at-arms, the hard-pressed soldier batting and twisting his polearm's haft about to intercept Bart's strikes - but with the advantage of his reach gone, the bigger man with the shorter weapon had the upper hand. Bart's overwhelming strength forced the man backward until a cry from Lidia caught his attention again - allowing the halberdier to slip through Bart's assault - rotating around the larger man in a barely-controlled scrabble to escape the corner he'd been forced into. Bart's head whipped around to glance at the thief for the briefest of moments as he shifted to track the spear's point.

Lidia had been attacked from behind by the second guardsman as she continued to choke out the first one, his hands on her arms trying to wrestle her free from the purple-faced man she was garroting to death with her belt, his struggles rapidly growing weaker. In that mere moment of attention, she impressed Bart by not relenting an inch -- and instead sinking her teeth into the second man's exposed face, twisting to bite down savagely on a mouthful of his nose and cheek, the man screamed in pain as she clamped harder - her sidhe-given fangs drawing blood and forcing him to try to twist away as she suddenly slackened the rope around his partner's neck.

Her hand moved quick as a striking snake, snatching the dagger from the bitten man's belt, and without a moment's hesitation she drove it down into the other gasping, semi-conscious man's neck - square at the base of his skull with every scrap of weight she had. The poniard entered under the rim of his askew helmet with a sickening crunch of bone and flesh as she drove it through the soft hollow at the root of his spine - straight up into his brain. He stiffened, eyes rolling up as she twisted the knife in his braincase with a grotesque sound of ripping meat and bone, tearing it back out with a flashing ribbon of gore to turn on the other man - leaping at him like a feral cat, blade slicing downwards.

Bart's attention was dragged back to the halberdier, who came at him again with an expert but absolutely textbook overhand chop and thrust combo. To Bart's eyes, with the battle-high fully suffusing him - the simple technique may as well have been signaled ahead of time by letter. Bart slapped the chop aside and instead of parrying the thrust he met it head-on, stepping to the side and bringing his axe down on the haft of the polearm. Wood chips flew but the heavy langets prevented him from simply lopping the head off the weapon. Nonetheless, it had served its purpose -- Bart twisted his axe, hooking the beard around the base of the halberd's own blade - locking them together. He was stronger than the other man, but the seasoned soldier's grip was nearly as firm.

They struggled a moment, the smaller man using his longer weapon's superior leverage to twist around sharply - rotating his shoulders to attempt to disarm Bart. The big man was prepared for this however, his mind moving at lightning speed as he unleashed his secret weapon on the other man: His fists. Dropping his axe he instead grasped the haft of the man's weapon and jerked it towards his side, Bart almost gracefully spinning along the haft -- the wrenching, twisting motion of his body tearing the weapon out of the man-at-arms' hands just in time for Bart's right hook to crash into his jaw with the force of a thunderstroke.

Teeth scattered, hitting the floor like a cup of bloody dice, and now armed with the guardsman's weapon, he reversed the grip on the haft and drove the leaf-bladed speartip through the man's gut, his simple mail shirt shrieking as the links sheared away under it. New screams were added to the din as Bart withdrew the weapon and stabbed again, again and once more for good measure - thrusting the blade repeatedly into the man's belly in a brutal triad that tore his mail asunder, before whipping it to the side, laying the man's guts open in a welter of gore, scattering mail links and slippery entrails. The screams peaked again as Bart kicked the man over, spilling him open like a split bag of hideous grain, and whirled to see Lidia struggling under the second man's bulk. She was a scrappy, savage combatant but less than half the man-at-arms' size and he'd slowly, at the clear cost of several savage cuts, begun to overpower her.

"HO, LIDIA!" Bart thundered, causing her -- and the guard - to suddenly look up as he reversed his grip on the halberd like a javelin. With a fresh roar of frenzy, he threw it overhand, the unbalanced weapon would make a poor projectile at regular range - but the sheer strength behind the throw at such an intimate distance carried it like a ballista bolt into the man's chest. His armor buckled with a shriek of metal and the man's own agony, the blade blasting a gout of wet viscera out where the point emerged from his back - tenting his mail around the lethal point and throwing him backward off the struggling thief, dead before he hit the ground.

"I had it!" she groused, standing up and spitting a mouthful of the man's blood with a faint retch to one side. The two remaining men remained screaming on the ground as she turned to Bart, who'd reclaimed his axe and walked coldly up to the disemboweled soldier, who was himself babbling pleas for his life. Bart paid them no mind, and his axe descended in a low arc - the gutted man's head rolled free across the floor.

"By th' Lady's Teats." Lidia breathed as she watched him walk over to the pale, twitching man with the shattered legs, once more the axe rose and fell, and another head rolled across the tile.

"Mind your tongue." he said coldly looking back to her through his visor, a fresh welter of gore running down his axe to the floor, causing the woman to raise her hands defensively.

"Right, right, no need tae say it double. Not a one more tae blasphemous oaths." she said, clearly a little pale as she looked around at the carnage.

"Are you hurt?" Bart asked, raising his visor and looking around for any new combatants. Lidia shook her head, touching herself here and there.

"Few bruises an' a nick or two, ahm fit, just a mite pissed." she snarled and he looked down at the dead guardsman.

"Can you handle a sword?" he asked, and she shook her head.

"Ne'er learned, prolly hurt meself with it rather than anyone else... but these!" she hissed, and took the other poniard from the dead guard, twirling it artfully in her hand, she snatched his belt and scabbard for it as well, scooping up the one she'd killed the first guard with as well.

"These I can use." she said, Bart nodded.

"You've killed before." he stated, banging the haft of his axe on the floor to shake the majority of the gore from its blade, no sense in wiping it down, he knew deep in his heart it'd be wet with gore again before long.

"Aye, a few times. First time I cannae been more than twelve." she said, eyes distant, cold... and gleaming with the fey shine that nearly was a glow in the candlelight. "He put hands on me girly bits. I only had a boot knife." she looked back up at Bart with a hard face.

"It took him a while tae die. I watched."

Bart nodded, taking his axe in both hands. Lidia answered the silent question by lifting her dagger to the ready, the other stowed in her stolen scabbard. Bart nodded once more, and they set off after the Magistrate.

The door veritably exploded as Bart's boot made savage contact with the center of it, once twice, a half-dozen times driving the hinges from the wall, the locking crossbar flying across the hall to smash into an obviously priceless vase of some sort, reducing it to slivers.

"That's one way 'o doin' it." Lidia mused as she stepped through the slivers of the door at Bart's shoulder, he looked down at her after checking the open halls and seeing nobody coming immediately.

"Will you be fine like... that." he said, jerking his chin at her bare legs. She shrugged, her eyes had begun to lume in the low light again.

"I'll manage, I've totted about in less." she said, getting his eyebrow up beneath his raised visor, with caused her to blow him a little kiss and a wink as she looked about and pointed.

"''He said 'down', which cannae mean naught but the un'ercrofts and sewers an' shite." she said, Bart nodded -- that tracked, all the disappearances tied back into that as well. Lidia continued; "I dunno the whole fookin' order of this place, but ye cannae put un'erground access in just anyplace. C'mon. Pretty sure I know where it'll be."

The two moved through the house at ready, Bart's eyes flicking to and fro, but in effect he found himself relying on Lidia's far more sensitive eyes and ears, her eyes glowing in the flickers of light in the dim house, ears perking to every sound that his helmet deadened beyond his perception.

"Ach, how does he stand this? This place is lit like a dungeon." Bart groused, the entire house beyond the foyer was lit with at best, sparse candles, no lanterns, no torch sconces, he found himself squinting through the darkness as he held his gore-soaked axe at the ready.

"Mayhap the tosser's new gross an' creepy monster body gives 'em eyeshine like lil' ol' me." she mused quietly, peeking around a corner. They'd been following her lead through the house, which was laid out surprisingly... oddly, he'd become used to the Abbey's military precision, laid out in a defensible grid around a centralized mustering ground -- this house while externally looking like a castle, was laid out anything but.

"Damnit, another dead end." Bart grumbled as they came to yet another series of doors, all unlocked, that lead to more guest rooms, servent's quarters, and the like... all abandoned.

"Aye ye gods, look at the dust here." she hissed, running a finger over a turned-down bed and bringing up a small mound of dust.

"These are supposed to be servant housing," Bart observed from the door, looking around, the room was entirely black, only the light from the hall's pitiful candles pushing through to the inside, neither Bart nor Lidia was dumb enough to produce light, or carry one of the candles. No sense in marking themselves in the dark, clearly the Magistrate didn't need it.

"''Posed to be, but I'll eat my own leg iffin' anyone but us barmy ponces have been in here." She hissed and pulled the sheets back from another of the long lists of bunks, there was a puff of dust, and suddenly she gasped and clapped her hand over her mouth in a stifled scream.

"What?! What is it?" Bart grunted, turning from watching the hall, snatching a candle from the stand, and bringing it up to where she pointed - he paled as well, his stomach turning.

"Well. We know what happened to the servants." He said grimly.

Arranged in the bed was the corpse of... a person, gender was impossible to say now, it was almost entirely skeletal, and the flesh had been... worried off the bones, the depth of the bites and their irregular marks suggested whatever -- or whoever -- had eaten this poor sod, had started when they were still alive.

"Ye gods, what monsters." She breathed, covering the body again and hustling out of the room, Bart happily closed it and replaced the candle.

"This explains the dwindling grain shipments to the Magistrate," Bart said as she shivered a bit, looking up at him. "No need for grain and stock when you aren't feeding servants anymore, and have turned the servants themselves into feed..." he said, and she shuddered.

"Thanks, that's positively fookin' horrific." the cutpurse mewled, clearly disturbed.

"Guess whatever evil he's in, he started slow." Bart said quietly as they continued down out of the dead-end hall; "Corrupting and consuming his houseguests and servants."

"'Splains the guards, ye." she agreed as they came back to the main hall again.

"Does it?" Bart countered, looking around and spreading his arms. "We killed four men, and there's not so much as a general hue or cry, where are all of them?"

"Mayhap he ate 'em." Lidia ventured, her brow furrowed as she looked down the hall, pausing she made a face and instead raised her nose -- and sniffed.

"What are you doing?" he asked, nerves obviously still frayed and she waved him off.

"Get back, ye smell like a fookin' slaughterhouse, it's messin' with my nose." she hissed, and Bart moved back a ways, stunned. She sniffed again and continued: "Slimy creep was big on th' eatin' o' things, so one place ye put cellar an' sewer access, is the kitchens," she said, a sick look on her face.

"'Ah'm followin' the smell o' cookin' meat." she said grimly.

Bart paused at that, and raising his visor he took a deep breath, the dust and blood had blocked much of his sense of smell, but after a moment he too, found the spicy scent of woodsmoke and sizzling meat but... off. He could only draw one conclusion on why that was.

"Well, lead on then bloodhound." he grumbled and she snorted.

The pair doubled back again, still skirting the main Foyer, it seemed the parlor was near multiple dining areas, studies, and small entertainment rooms, all abandoned and in various states of dusty disuse, it seemed to Bart at least the Magistrate didn't spend much time here, and only kept the front-facing things up to snuff.

"Kitchen's this way," she confirmed as she pointed at several abandoned carts for transporting food and dishes from the kitchens, all still covered -- Bart and Lidia both pointedly left them that way. The house left them eerily alone and silent -- even the steward they'd met earlier was gone. Nonetheless, Lidia's senses were without peer, and they turned through the hallways into a narrow, wood-floored hall clearly meant for servant access to the various dining rooms. Unremarkable and cramped, meant for two carts to move abreast and no more - the warm glow of a fire at the end showed under a pair of heavy double doors.

"Well, soups on somewhere," Lidia murmured as the two of them slowly made their way down the hallway, Bart taking a moment to firmly latch his visor and grip his axe as they soon stood to either side of the great double doors. Lidia gently tried the handle and found it also locked -- which she screwed up her face at and peered in the keyhole.

"Cannae ye kick this one down too?" Lidia asked him, and Bart gave it a look and shrugged. The door was heavier than the one on the parlor but he didn't see any crossbeams.

"It will be loud, but likely yes," he said and she frowned. He stepped back to size it up and suddenly a cry went up behind them. Whirling in place, Bart spied the source: several more guards spilled into the end of the hallway, He swore and set himself between Lidia and the advancing soldiers.

"Where th' bloody hell were they?!" she cried in pure indignation; "Powderin' their fookin' noses?!"

"Get the door open, you said you could pick it! I'll hold them off!" Bart barked, drawing his axe up into high guard. He counted five, but the press of bodies in the narrow corridor meant that beyond that there could be plenty more. He couldn't afford to let them regroup or they'd just shove them against the wall at the end of a spear. Lidia bolted to the door, producing a small roll of tools from within her torn dress top.

The men-at-arms formed up, two abreast, milling a little -- he could see they were still professionals, but there was still some of that odd stiffness about them, perhaps the corruption that engulfed the magistrate spread to them in some way - it would explain how easily their armor had cleaved beneath his blade, that odd rot like the bandits on the road had been afflicted with had spread to their gear as well.

"FOR THE LADY AND THE LIGHT OF THE PALE DAWN!" Bart roared at the top of his lungs, his voice shaking the dust from the walls as he raised his axe into a high right guard -- and he charged. The men had expected many things, but not a full-bore suicide charge, the two in front whipping war hammers free of their belts, bucklers on their off-hands, behind them he saw men tangled trying to get pikes through the narrow doorway, that must be what delayed them.

His footsteps thundered across the wood planks as he bore down on the front rank, a ringing battle cry splitting the air around him once more, and for a moment - he felt unstoppable. Time seemed to slow down as he approached the front line, seeing the whites of their wide eyes, his heart burned in his chest, pounding at his ribs, exhilaration driving his pulse like an auto hammer... he had now twice in the same day felt the battle-high he'd heard tell of from veterans, he found himself full of instead of fury -- righteous indignation, how DARE these monsters prey upon the weak, the young and the frail? The gruesome black rage he'd struggled with melted beneath this new sensation like wax to a flame as he crashed into the first man like a runaway oxcart, not even bothering to swing his axe as his sheer charging mass sent the man sprawling when Bart's heavy pauldron impacted him in the chest. The first stroke caught his partner's buckler with such intense force that the man's arm snapped back and his entire body shifted back one step, but he held his ground. Bart drove down at him again, axe swinging in furious strokes as he felt the righteous thrill of battle spur him further, to fight a good fight -- was he laughing? He couldn't tell as another roar split his lips, battering twice more at the defensive man's rather impressive buckler work before answering it with a savage kick to the cursed man's chest - catapulting him back into the rear ranks - only to be replaced by his partner, now recovered from being flattened.

"COME ON THEN, SHOW ME YOUR MIGHT!" Bart bellowed, behind him Lidia's head snapped around at his commentary, eyes wide with incredulity. The men-at-arms met him gamely, the two in front shoulder-to-shoulder, a part of Bart's mind commended them for their discipline as they pushed back, swinging measured strikes at his head and joints, forcing him back on the defensive as he deftly parried as many blows as he could -- yet he gave ground, and took several blows across the arms, shoulders, and thighs, turning them into stinging impacts or glancing scrapes. His heavy armor gave him a powerful advantage -- one they'd clearly sought to counter with the hammers. Behind them the pikes forced themselves through the door and the men began to set them into formation.

"Goddamnit, ye fat oafs must ye shake ER'RYTHING?!" Lidia snarled behind him as he lost half of the hall to the counter push, the deft thief's tools shaking as the din of battle jarred the floorboards and the door itself. Bart attempted to push the line back with another rush - and was rewarded for it by a resounding blow to his midsection that drove the breath from his lungs. He staggered back, falling to one knee as he sucked air fruitlessly. Behind, Lidia cried out for him as his vision briefly blurred with tears from his burning lungs.

"Get the door open!" he grated and lashed up from one knee with a jab of the blunt end of the axe head at the man-at-arms looming over him, the flat of the blade's leading edge catching him in the throat as he raised his hammer to cave in Bart's skull. He felt the man's throat crunch under the heavy blow, gagging and clawing at his crushed windpipe as Bart pushed off the ground, lunging forward with his leg raised high to drive his boot down on his chest - crushing him to the ground and whipping his axe's back-hammer across at his partner in a brutal backhand that returned the earlier favor - catching the man in his ribs, the padded gambeson and mail hauberk doing little against the hammer-end's sheer crushing force. He felt at least one rib break, and the man gave a hoarse cry, blood splattering his lips as he raised his own weapon - swinging wildly at Bart's head. The big Knight-Brother hunched his shoulders and ducked his head, wincing as he felt new bruises as the undisciplined blows rained on his thick-armored back and shoulders. He drove forward, axe held across his body like a quarterstaff, driving the man against the wall with a resounding smash that dented in the wall panels and drew another frustrating scream from Lidia as her work was interrupted again.

"CAN YE JUST FOOKIN' KILL THEM QUIETLY?!" she screamed at him, spitting and twisting at the lock's internals again. Bart gritted his teeth as he and the other man struggled a moment, eye to eye through his visor, the guardsman electing to dig in his heels and try to wrench the churchman off balance.

Bart instead reeled his head back and slammed the heavy ridge of his helmet into the man's face. The visor of his helmet deflected much of the force away from him yet his ears still rung from the impact - yet Bart didn't relent, snapping his head forward in a brutal headbutt over and over again, driving the man down into the floor as his nose and teeth crunched under the assault before finally ripping his axe free and chopping roughly down into the soldier's neck. Tearing it out with a great sheet of blood, Bart turned just in time to feel the bite of steel in his shoulder as a pikeman drove his weapon into his armored torso.

Bart screamed, pain and anger mingling in the cry as he grasped the haft of the pike still embedded in his body, and raised his axe - chopping down brutally on the wooden shaft. Unlike a halberd, the pike had no langets this far down the haft to protect it, and thus his axe swung true and struck the weapon's head cleanly off. With a fresh scream of pain, he pulled the speartip out of the gap in his armor it'd found, slipping under his pauldron in mid-swing, an inch of its wicked point covered in his own bright blood. The wound was shallow, but it was proof he was slowing.

"C'mon, c'mooooon...." Lidia chanted, hands twitching as Bart advanced, driving the broken pike-head into the choking man's eye, killing him instantly, just in time to roll his torso out of the way of another thrust of the remaining pike - though the men behind them were raising yet another to replace the one he'd splintered. Raising his axe he assumed a defensive posture, if he could just break the rest of the pikes, maybe he could press them...

"GOT IT!" came from behind him with a loud clack of metal-on-metal, Lidia snatched her tools up and slammed her body into the door, shoving it open, Bart followed her at a dead run, slamming the door shut behind him and leaning his bulk into it.

"I need a brace!" he shouted, but Lidia - canny as she was - had already come to his side, shoving a chair from the nearby table up under the door handles, wedging it firmly closed as the men on the other side hit it with a shuddering impact. Bart whirled and took the room in... empty, save for a simmering pot on the fire over the hearth.

"You're hurt!" Lidia hissed, putting her hands on his armored chest where he'd been stabbed. Blood oozed between the plates, his gambeson soaking much of it.

"It's minor, we need to move." He said as she ripped another strip of cloth off her dress, wadding it up and looking around, quickly she grabbed a bottle of spirits from the shelf and pulled the cork with her teeth, wetting it down and stuffing it through the hole in his mail. He let out a loud, tooth-clenching shout at that as she packed the wound tight with the cloth and banged on his breastplate twice.

"There! It'll do for now." she said, eyes whirling around the room before she snapped her fingers and pointed: "There!" she barked, gesturing to the far corner - near the basins there was a heavy stone stairwell, going down.

"It's better than here," he agreed, feeling another slam into the door, he shoved the chair in firmer - overturning a heavy shelf onto the door for good measure. Lidia pulled out another of her tools and pushed it into the locking mechanism, she twisted it roughly and then yanked, the tool bent and snapped off and she spat at the door before looking up at Bart.

"Ye owe me a new pick." she snapped, dropping the ruins of the broken one at his feet. Bart turned as the door shuddered again and they made their way towards the cellar.

Bart's mind for a moment had a chance to rest as Lidia worked on the next door - locked as well, but this one she seemed to be more prepared for. Her hands were a blur of motion as she groused and cooed at the lock in turn, trying to sweet-talk it open. He looked back at the door, the sting of pain in his shoulder reducing to a dull throb, blood had stopped running down from it... he didn't really feel the injury, and he knew it was the battle-high at work. He had killed again, and this time he had not hesitated, there had even been a touch of enjoyment in the battle. He frowned as he considered his exhilaration in the face of death, something to ponder - had a life already become so easy for him to take?

"Annnnd in we go!" Lidia crowed with a fresh click, pushing the heavy iron-bound door open... to complete, pitch darkness. A fresh slam hit the blocked door upstairs, the swearing growing louder as someone clearly tried to force a key into the ruined lock to no avail. Lidia looked up at him with a concerned expression, the door shuddered again, but seemed to hold for now.

"We'll need a light, you may be able to see in the dark but I'm blind," he said as he peered down the inky tunnel. He cast about the kitchen and spied a hooded lantern tucked onto a shelf near some old cloaks and aprons, a gentle shake bespoke of its being well filled with oil, the door again slammed and he looked around, spying a window.

"Can you relock that door?" he asked, and she nodded briskly, following his eyes and grinning.

"Ye're more devious than ah gave ye credit," she said as Bart moved to the window, making a great deal of noise kicking it open with a shattering of the frame and wood shutters, looking down the short drop into the night air. Nodding, the big man hustled down into the darkness, taking just a moment to light the lantern's wick from the kitchen fire, pointedly looking away from the pot simmering on it. He had no desire to see anything floating in the stew.

"Are ye sure about fightin' wit' that hole in ye?" Lidia asked, her deft hands turning the lock back closed easily three times as fast as she opened it, dropping the entire tight corridor into utter darkness, he opened the lantern's hood slightly, letting out just a faint glow of light.

"It'll be fine, I still have the healing draughts Naima gave me," he said, feeling about his belt... and his face falling as he felt the crunch of broken glass. He looked down at himself and turned the small bandoleer across his waist - of the five potions that he'd been given, only two were intact. The other three were crushed and shattered, likely by blows he'd sustained in combat. His jaw tightened.

"Oh," Lidia said with mute surprise as he pulled the bandoleer free, handing it to her. "What's this for?"

"We may need one of those for Elly, or yourself. Better they're on the person not being beaten with war hammers," he said laconically, rolling his wounded shoulder with a wince, feeling the blood seeping further into the padding of his gambeson. Lidia remained silent on it as he took the lead again, his armor clattering softly as he advanced through the narrow hallway, lantern held forward.

The passageway went down, sloping severely at first until it leveled out, Bart felt out of sorts, he'd never really been underground before -- in a cellar or basement for sure, but the further they went the more he became conscious of the massive vaults of stone above him. Lidia caught his eyes flicking to the ceiling as they walked.

"Ne'er been in a place like this a'fore?" she asked, her voice quiet as a mouse, he responded with a simple nod. She stayed close to him. "It'll linger, but ye'll get rights of it after a fashion."

"What kind of place is this?" he asked as he looked around, the hallway had yet to break or branch, it was strange to him to have such a thing off a kitchen, Lidia peered around, and her face turned into a frown again.

"It should be a simple path down to the cellars, aye?" she said, peering past him into the darkness. "Could be deeper, sommat them nobles like fancy wine cellars to be pretty well un'er the earth to keep their spirits all dank and proper," she said, and Bart agreed that they were at least still descending, the path was more level but his feet told him they were still moving downward however slightly. Nonetheless, as soon as he was about to consider turning back, the light of the lantern splayed across another door, he stepped aside and gestured to Lidia, who set herself to work on the door.

"Ne'er seen so many locks in such places af'ore." she murmured as he watched down the hall, he glanced at her a moment.

"Can you tell where we are? I'm disoriented in this tomb," he said, and she paused furrowing her brow before resuming with her picks, nodding.

"I think so, I cannae be sure but from countin' my paces through here, we're 'neath the manor's rear yard some ways," she said, hands working slowly and in near total silence.

"You can tell that from steps?" he asked, genuinely impressed. She nodded with a little shrug.

"Wee little cutpurses like me run 'round the sewers and tunnels plenty, most o' the fancier joints in Lachheim hook inna the sewers somewhere from the bottom levels, particularly these real ol' ones." she said with a casual expertise, twisting her fingers around the lock with a furrowed brow; "Ach, 'course I use my good wiper tae jam up th' lock upstairs," she murmured irritably. The lock clicked open after a moment, and she grinned and moved to open it, but Bart's hand touched her shoulder, giving her pause as she looked up at him.

"Your aid has been instrumental to this," he began - his expression soft behind his visor in the lantern's light; "If I don't live to the end, I wanted you to know that I am glad you were here, I could not have done this without you," he said, giving her shoulder a squeeze. Eyes wide, she nodded with a faint smile of her own.

"Big o' ye, but... ye ain't so bad yerself. Ne'er seen anyone care so much for us lowborn on such short notice," she said, standing to one side of the door as he handed her the lantern, hefting his axe with a wince - the stab wound would plague him for a while yet.

"We are all God's children, and I will be damned thrice and done before I allow some petty monster to take them without a fight."

The door opened and they peered inside, Bart at the ready as the light washed over a wide open space. A short stairway descended some ten spans to a solid floor of flagstones, rising out of the darkness like great stone trees were heavy columns of masonry that met in regular intervals with large, arching buttresses to form a grid of open cells - the manor's undercroft. The light from the lantern illuminated stacks of cordwood and crates of nails, flasks of oil, and lamp tallow - The usual things one expected to find in manor stores - yet the looming darkness promised something else. Lidia's nose wrinkled and she gagged as they entered the room.

"God's Teeth that's th' foulest thing I ever smelled!" she wheezed out between hands clapped over her nose. Bart also reeled, thankful his nose wasn't as sensitive as the sidheblooded girl's, for even to him the smell was like a physical wall: a noxious odor that was somewhere mixed between an open barrel of naphtha, vinegar, and the gagging musk of a hog in rut. His eyes watered a moment as he carefully closed the door behind them.

"It will linger." he agreed in a hoarse voice, raising his visor to spit to the side, his mouth tasting of salt and bile. Lidia was less fortunate, doubling over and vomiting messily in a corner near a crate of oil flasks, her shoulders heaving as she emptied her stomach.

"Ugh, what could make such'a stench?" she rasped, wiping her mouth, tearing another strip off the homespun dress and wrapping it over her face, but the continuous streams of tears showed it only somewhat effective. Still, she met his gaze with agate-hard eyes, the fae gleam making them lume in the lantern's light like a hunting cat.

"Let's get moving." she grated.

The pair set out, the cells of the undercroft were more open as they got further down, Bart knelt to touch the floor after a short walk, brow furrowed.

"These are... footprints," he said, much of the undercroft was in disrepair the further they went - as if the servants only cleaned and maintained near the doorway. Further on past the cast of torchlight they were slowly encompassed by filth, dirt, and detritus - and in that layer of scum and filth, there were impressions, deep ones. Large ones.

"I canne say Ah've e'er seen a foot like'o that." Lidia said, her accent creeping in thick with her tension. Bart peered closer, lowering the lantern to give it more light. They were massive, easily wider than Bart's entire hand, fingers spread. They had thick pads and heavy toes, and no discernable heel, yet...

"Whatever this thing is, it walks upright," Bart said, and Lidia looked up then down and her eyes widened.

"Aye, the length o' the steps." she hissed, seemed that the little cutpurse had some understanding of tracking. Bart nodded and raised his lantern.

"We have a path then," he said, and the little thief set her jaw.

"Whate'er this beastie is, it's gonna die." she hissed, her sharp canines standing out against her lip as she growled for emphasis; "Screamin'."

The pair followed the footprints, which were soon joined by others into a common path through the wide forest of pillars beneath the manor, the undercroft felt like it went on miles in every direction - but even Bart's less adjusted senses knew that was just the darkness playing tricks on his mind. The trail lead them to the furthest corner, Bart was completely unsure of where they were, but Lidia's underground senses remained sharp as ever, her head on a swivel.

"We're close tae th' cistern." she said, tilting her head to cant an ear; "Listen."

Bart tilted his head a bit, his helmet dampened his hearing but after a moment he found what she intended: the lapping of water on stone. Lidia took the lead then, handing back the lantern to Bart, who shifted his axe to one hand and followed his little companion's light steps.

"I'd suggest ye be quiet, but somehow I think ye'd squeak even worse if ye tried." she said to him as they found themselves suddenly at a far wall of the undercroft, facing another stairwell... and a ruinous aftermath of something.

"Lady preseve me, are those claw marks?" Bart said, before them where a door much like the one they entered should have been, was a gaping, shredded hole. Massive chunks of masonry had been ripped out wholesale and the door itself lay, bent and splintered inside of its iron-bound frame some feet away, its entire entry smashed and widened, as if something too large to fit had simply bulled through it, and expanded the opening afterward. The bricks themselves were marred with long gouges in sets of four, deep, rounded abrasions that could only be one thing.

"Ye. Ye they look th' like." Lidia agreed, touching the wall and forming her hand into a claw, fitting it into one of the grooves. "Right big bastard too, take a lot o' strength tae do this." she said, reaching up to cover her mouth again.

"The smell?" Bart asked as he approached the hole, and wavered a bit. It was in fact stronger, as Lidia nodded in response. The pair pushed through the opening to the cistern proper, a simple brick walkway ran through its center, the two grates above sitting over a pair of deep-carved stone basins on either side of the walk, half-full with disgusting, rancid water. Shapes floated across the scum-covered surface, shapes Bart nor Lidia were in a hurry to discover the details of. Across the walk was another destroyed entrance, the portal once more torn asunder and the surrounded brickwork worried into a wider portal.

"Strange to have a cistern connect to the sewers." Bart noted, but Lidia shook her head, turning her face away a bit before speaking.

"Nay, its not really a privy sewer, more like a storm tunnel," she said, pointing up at the grated sand filter wells above. "Rainwater runs in through there, the grit cleans it out in tae usual state. Openin' here would let any oe'erflow from floodin' rush through into the drains instead o' backin' up into the house." Bart paused as she finished, hand on her hip.

"You are surprisingly knowledgeable about this," he stated humbly, and she shrugged.

"A tunnel runner who dinnae know how er'erything works is a tunnel runner who drowns in tae rainy season." she stated simply as the two left the cistern and proceeded into the tunnels beyond.