Waterstrider

5th District, Tseludia Station, Pantheonic Territory, Thirdmonth, 1634 PTS

Yun swirled her finger around the rim of her cup, her mind clearly lost in some far off place. For a moment I got the sense that like me, her thoughts also went back to our far away home. In the next, I became annoyed at how low-effort her delaying tactic was.

“Are you not going to answer?” I asked. “I went through great effort to get that research information for you, you know.”

The woman shrugged, uncoiling herself from the back of her chair and taking a sip of the alcohol she had ordered. She smiled at me, painted lips glistening in the light of the fake lanterns.

“I was considering my response, Mister Cyrus. In this business, it pays to make sure you carefully. Choose. Your. Words, you see?”

“I can’t say I do.”

She chuckled, giving me a wry smile.

“I’m sure you wouldn’t. You strike me as the type to just get into a fight if there’s a disagreement. I’m sure you see it as the.. more efficient solution? I’ll explain it to you. My profession exists to deal with martial artists, and it is mostly martial artists who seek out my services. Mortals tend to… avoid involvement with this world, for their own safety.”

She motioned at me as she took another sip of her alcohol.

“ As such, it is men like you who I deal with, Mister Riverfiend. Martial artists, the type who like to feel like they’re powerful. And yet they’re here, speaking with me, which means they’re not. Not as much as they would like to be, at least.”

She laughed, looking at my face.

“Am I wrong?”

I sighed, feeling obliged to let her finish her diatribe so we could move forward with the discussion.

“I can’t say you are,” I said.

“Exactly!”

She thrusted the cup towards me, a wide smile on her face. A bit of liquid sloshed over the rim and splashed onto the table, and she gave it a sad look.

She was acting as if she were drunk, but I knew that couldn’t be the case. A practitioner of poison arts at her level would not be affected by even alcohol far stronger than what she was drinking. It would be more likely for me to get drunk off of the tea I was drinking than she off of mundane alcohol. I got the impression that she might simply enjoy acting like this. I took a sip from my cup while she continued speaking.

“Exactly. Big, strong martial artist, embarrassed about looking for a poisoner. They see this woman, probably half to a whole realm below them, and deep down, they know. ‘She can do what I can’t.’ This hurts their ego. Once I give them what they asked for, they think, ‘I don’t need her anymore, so I should do what I want.’”

She smiled again, but this time she met my eyes, her expression suddenly turning deadly serious as she leaned in.

“I don’t enjoy having to kill my clients, you see.”

So that was her point. I took another sip of my tea.

“You’re in luck, then. There’s a proverb I once heard, back on the Crucible.”

“Oh? And what was it?” she asked.

She had leaned back into her normal relaxed position, her expression back to her normal cunning smile.

“A wise lord never angers his poisoner.”

She smiled calmly.

“I’m glad you understand.”

“You know, there was another part to the saying as well,” I said.

Yun raised her eyebrow.

“Do tell.”

“A wiser lord never needs to meet them.”

She laughed, and somehow I got the sense that it was a real one this time.

“I have to agree, Mister Cyrus. I hope you don’t become too wise, in that case. I would hate to lose a good customer.”

She idly swirled a finger around the rim of her glass again, before reaching into her robes to pull out a small glass vial. Inside was a red liquid that glinted in the light. I gazed at it in fascination as she set it down on the table. It seemed almost mundane. A small, childish part of me had expected a poison intended for a spirit refiner to be appear fantastical in some sort of way

“Is that it?” I asked.

“One spirit refinement tier poison, as requested. Once I get it inside his system, his strength should be reduced to roughly comparable to the core formation realm.”

I smiled, looking forward to the battle.

“Perfect, that should work just fine.”

“You know,” she said, giving me an odd look, “It would have been much easier to formulate a poison that would kill him.”

I shook my head in response.

“That wouldn’t have worked out for the plan.”

“Would you mind telling me your plan, then?”

Her finger was still tracing the rim of her cup in a distracting manner.

“You wanted me to help, didn’t you?”

I considered for a moment before deciding that it would be more effective to just explain it to her. I sipped the last of my tea before setting it back down on the table with a clack.

“Killing him isn’t all we’re looking for. I want to kill him personally in a dominant show of force.”

“Oh?” she asked. “And why’s that?”

I smiled as I refilled my drink from the teapot that rested in the middle of the table.

“I imagine it should quell the internal dissent from when I take over his gang.”

2nd District, Tseludia Station, Pantheonic Territory, Thirdmonth, 1634 PTS

“What?” roared Nahalken, surprised and enraged by the bad news. “I thought you said nobody knew, and that it would take a large force to break in!”

His subordinate, despite being much taller than him, trembled beneath the force of his fury, intimidated to his bones.

The larger Staiven shifted uneasily, his skin beginning to shed with nervousness

“Y-yes, sir. I did say that was likely the case. What we didn’t anticipate was the use of large-scale explosives to break through the wall and avoid our defensives altogether. The yield required would have risked taking down the entire stack.”

Nahalken slammed his fist down on his desk, causing a small sculpture that served as a desk ornament to topple over.

“Do you know how much that research is worth? For the Goddess’ sake, Redias, given what I pay you, I expect results.”

He sighed, picking the sculpture of the Pantheonic Goddess of Commerce and carefully setting it back down on his deck with a muttered apology. Redias remained silently in place, waiting for his employer to calm down and move into his crisis management mode. Redias had worked for the man for quite a long time, and he had seen Nahalken react to major crises before in various fields.

“Fine, then,” said Nahalken, sighing grudgingly and moving forward, “it’s already happened. Do you at least know who it was that did this?”

Grudgingly, Redias admitted the truth.

“We aren’t sure. He was disguised, but we believe he must have been a Seiyal male. He did everything alone, but I suspect he had a force backing him. It is the only way to explain his expert placement of the bombs. The calculations that would have been required to set them up so precisely should be beyond Seiyal capabilities.”

Nahalken frowned, considering the matter. The obvious culprit was the Hadal Clan, as the Seiyal were the ones most threatened by miasmic poison research. However, the Hadal clan had never once used explosives before, to his knowledge, choosing instead to operate via shows of martial force. He had done extensive research on the Clan before agreeing to the commission, and if they were anything, martial artists certainly tended to be consistent. From what he had heard, Seiyal culture largely tended to remain consistent across most of the space that the species occupied, despite decades of travel isolating the groups. It struck him as odd, but he had mentally filed it away under the odd features that aliens tended to have in general.

“A lone… Seiyal… man…” Nahalken muttered, feeling like he was remembering something he had read recently. “Ah, that’s right! Wasn’t there some lone martial artist that caused an outcry recently? I remember hearing about it.”

Redias nodded.

“The Riverfiend, yes. I considered it, but I don’t believe he was involved.”

“Why is that?” asked Nahalken, curious.

“According to internal reports by the Office of Justice, the man is technology illiterate and does not speak conversational Staiven. The one who assaulted our facility expertly used explosives and even knew how our computer systems worked. In addition, he spoke perfectly fluently with the guards.”

Nahalken nodded, satisfied.

“I see. It was an idle thought, anyway. Now, what was that I heard about one of the guards?”

Redias shuddered as he remembered what had become of poor Isidr. He had met the man several times, and was satisfied with his work. He had been found looking as if he was half dissolved, his body withered due to expelling his internal fluids out of every pore and orifice.

“Do you mean what happened to Isidr? It was very gruesome, sir. There are pictures, if you would like to see them.”

“I’ve already looked at them,” said Nahalken dismissively. “What do you think about the potential cause?”

“The footage was unclear, and just showed him staring at the intruder before laughing and starting to bleed. It’s possible it was some weapon or martial ability we don’t know about, but… Isidr was also the only sanguine who faced the intruder. I find that potentially related.”

Nahalken nodded, his mind whirling through all he knew on the matter. As one of the heads of the Venin Group, which had many research and manufacturing contracts with the government, he was privy to certain dangerous information the Pantheonic Government liked to keep under wraps. In particular, the real reason that they took elderly sanguine Staiven into custody. Redias knew less than he did, but had been intelligent enough to notice Nahalken’s continued interest in them. Nahalken expected the man had at least figured out that something was going on.

“You might be right about that. That’s good, though,” he said, smiling at his own idea. “That might help offset the blowback at this failure. Secretly take his body, tell his family he was atomized in the explosion or something. And.. send it to Research Facility 6S.”

Redias nodded solemnly.

“Would that be everything, sir?” he asked.

Nahalken waved him off, swiveling his chair around as he sensed the various objects and art pieces he had acquired over the long years. Alongside one wall was a slightly less than life-sized statue of a Staiven woman wearing the traditional garb of a commerce maiden. He closed his eyes, whispering words of prayer before swiveling his chair back to his work station. He had apologized to his goddess, and now it was time to apologize to his client.

Fulstovis: [The Pantheonic Goddess of Commerce, Fulstovis has been an icon of Staiven culture ever since the Pantheon arrived on Staive. She is one of the most widely worshipped of the Pantheon, as her church doubles as the most powerful Staiven corporation, one which only works with other businesses whose proprietors also worship her. Her tenets include the endless quest for gathering wealth, trade as the vital lifeblood of society, and a meritocratic structure of society where the most equipped to earn money are on top. Notably, her followers disdain the rich who do not actively work to grow their own money through means of commerce. Direct investments into stocks and bonds are seen as a crutch for the weak. Culturally, Fulstovis is associated with genesis miasma, though even the priests claim there is no direct relation, as because she is a deity, miasma should in theory bear no meaning in the realm she lives in. Fulstovis is also credited with making the deal that convinced the owner of the Calculation Engines to create the portals that surround Staive to this day.]