Xeno Core

When Bruen wakes up the manor is eerily quiet. His head throbs in pain and a spurt of fresh blood washes down the side of his head.

Two of his peripheral eyes were gummed up with dried blood while he slept, throwing his sense of balance off slightly, but still he lurches upright and begins looking around.

The dull pounding ache of his head is not enough to keep him from remembering the events leading to his present situation. Fear causes weakness and nausea to rip through his thorax in waves before he can bring himself under control.

"Mos Denn! Jurer Nuhst?" His voice grates painfully and he coughs up a mucus covered clot. Turns out that Nuhst can hit surprisingly hard, for such a scrawny thaumatist.

There is no answer to his calls. The silence is broken only by a slow drip echoing from the next room.

The medical pool is cloudy with old blood, definitely his own, possibly his master's as well. Possibility confirmed, there's a trail of blood leading from the pool off into the adjoining storage room. At the bottom of the pool is a discarded bottle, drops of something dark still clinging to the inside.

Bruen stumbles toward the storage room, weaving drunkenly as he attempts to avoid dragging his tentacles through the trail left by his master's body, and stops in the doorway. The stench of something rotting causes him to reel. A scene from his worst nightmares fills his vision. Azure blood splatters cover every surface unevenly and shards of shattered carapace litter the floor.

Belted onto the walls are several cleaning tools, now defiled. Jars of chemicals for various uses are strewn around the cluttered space. And there strapped to a spare operating table, a demented parody of what should be, lies the ruins of Denn's corpse. Hollowed out by Nuhst as he claimed the valuable magitech that kept the old one's battle torn carcass moving around. Even the master's eyes have been scooped out, leaving dark holes to stare accusingly into the room.

Unable to bear the sight of his former master and the horrible end that had befallen him, Bruen runs from the stinking and gruesome things in that room. Out past the medical pool, down the winding corridors leading to the manse proper and all the way to his room.

Slamming the door shut on his way in, Bruen collapses into a heap on the soft furs of his sleep nest. Wails and burbling sobs pour from his shuddering form as misery washes over him. Everything he has known since his first adult molt, gone in a single violent evening.

The soft mewling of the master's pack of grelld at his chamber door rouses Bruen from his suffering state long enough to remember their needs. He realizes that there are still some things he must do. With a new sense of purpose he then goes to wash himself in the sand room. Grit and dust combined with blood and other filth coats the floor in greenish mud when he is done, food for small scavengers cultivated for the purpose.

He scoops out the soiled nestboxes and gives the grelld fresh algal fronds, which they eagerly rip to shreds and spread into loose piles in the corners of their sleeping spaces. Then he collects the beaks and other inedible parts of the remains of the small hunters' prey and carries the lot to the compost pile using a large hollow shell. There small blind osteovorous worms will convert them into useful mulch for the aquatic gardens.

After finishing his chores Bruen changes into his best quality robes and locks the mansion up before leaving, headed towards the constabulary offices. The disappearance of his master will be quickly noticed and Bruen is an obvious first choice of suspects. Cliched stories of butlers murdering their master are sold at many corner newsstands for less that the price of six-weights of grainy paper.

Perhaps by cooperating and going to the authorities willingly they will be more inclined to believe him, but Bruen knows this is a faint hope. The words of a casteless one carry little weight. Even so, the consequences would be far worse if the enforcers have to come looking for him.

He slides past others of his kind as he travels the busy hivecity. Each caste has its easy visual identifiers, making it very simple to know when to give way to one of higher caste. Upper tendrils brush each other in passing, lower tendrils pulled in politely to their owner's thorax.

A soft rustling is the loudest sound to be heard aside from the songs of the aveoformes flying between the ceramic domes and metallic spires of the city.

Bruen stops to find a meal, bought from a street stall for a pittance, when his appetite finally returns.

It is early evening when he arrives at the central constabulary office and rune powered color coded lamps come aglow from the sides of buildings, lighting the way for any citizen needing guidance after sundown.

A mild rain has started to fall, though even that is not enough to ease Bruen's weary spirit. The crowd has thinned considerably, few having business keeping them out this late, and does not impede him as he approaches the front door.

The glow of lamps can be seen inside, spilling out through the opaque glass and forming islands of illumination in the darkness. Bruen pulls upon the tasseled zelsilk bell rope hanging next to the heavily rune carved ceramic door, announcing his presence to those enforcers still within.

The door is opened by an imposing figure with the mottled carapace of a born enforcer clearly visible underneath the uniform of a midranking enforcer. Standing several bits taller than the average male, with a perpetually annoyed look to his face that doesn't make it past the boredom in his voice.

"If this could wait until morning, you will find much more eager help than those poor individuals who must work in darkness," he drawls out before properly looking over Bruen's state. "You've been attacked! Do you know who accosted you, citizen?"

"Yes, Pel, but that is not important right now. My master has been murdered! Please, the Denn Estate," Bruen pleads with the enforcer, making an unseemly show of emotion in his grief-stricken state.

"Please calm yourself before we're forced to restrain you. Hmm, the Denn Estate, you say? Wait here please, citizen," the enforcer asks before turning and re-entering the imposing building whose doorway he had been occupying. The door slams shut behind the officer with an ominous flash as the wards engraved upon it reactivate.

Bruen is not left outside waiting long before a different enforcer opens the door and silently bids him enter.

The air inside contains a lightly scented mist swirling near the ceiling on unfelt currents. His first breath fills him with calm, an aura of tranquility he is sure is applied to all who enter these halls.

Hushed whispers fill the place as a bewildering endless bureaucratic ritual is carried out, in this instance by dedicated members of the enforcer caste, but transcending caste this ritual is mirrored across the world. Long scrolls are filled out, signed, co-signed, passed first down then up the chain, reviewed, edited, and signed again before being filed away as they start the ritual anew.

The main area is divided into many open workspaces, each with a desk and ceramic half-pillars upon which clutter sprouts like fungi after a heavy rain. Few of the paper strewn desks have anyone at them, most being home in their warrens sleeping soundly. Many doors lead off from this main area, each glowing with powerful enchantments.

He's led to a small side room and told to wait after being asked a few questions. Inside the brightly lit little room stands a desk made from polished stonepolyp with one large chair for its owner and two lesser chairs in front. Bruen seats himself in one of the plain wooden chairs and frets. How long could it take to confirm that he worked at the Denn Estate?

It feels like an eternity to Bruen, suffering alone in the silent room. The wait gives him time to take in his surroundings. On the wall are hung embroidered garments of an unusual make, reminding the nervous servant of Southern tribal kilts his master had collected on his campaigns.

"Mos Bruen? Pel Tosk is ready to speak when you are, sir," a voice dispassionately announces from the delicately carved ceiling.

Bruen begins to panic. Bad enough to be homeless and unemployed and possibly accused of murder, but to add impersonating an upper caste is too much!