Angelo
Downtown Coast
Afternoon
April 14th
I found the drugged-up rats hiding out Downtown.
It was stupid of them, extremely so, but the Merchants were like diseased hyenas, scrounging for scraps that were already picked over by larger predators. When pressed or threatened, they migrated to the next rotting corpse, hoping to hide and feast whilst the lions' attention lay elsewhere. In this case, the ABB was braying for blood after Lung's death, and since Skidmark's runners had already pissed them off… heading Downtown and trying their luck amongst the nazis and professional mercenaries was better than risking all-out war with a group of angry Asian gangsters.
As it happened, Skidmark was dumb, but not stupid. He and his homeless retinue had many hideouts spread all throughout the city, ready to be occupied if any one base became too hot and they had to move. I'd only needed to find one such hideout to get the rough location of his main Downtown haunt, after extracting what I needed from one of the druggy lookouts - a combination of the Message cantrip, and my impressive acting skills, forcing the dumbass into a whole panic attack before he begged the 'ghosts' to leave him be in exchange for the address.
Admittedly, that had been mainly for fun - I didn't need to use deceit when my enemies were a bunch of inebriated retards, but what use was there for magic if you couldn't amuse yourself with cantrips? Afterwards I had ripped my way through the smoky apartment room with magic and blade right after, taking what little meth and cash they had as tribute, before continuing on. That hadn't been the only Merchant stash houses I'd hit over the past few days, and I knew for a fact that they were getting scared. Suspicious.
Good thing I was planning to cut the head off of the lead loser before the day ended.
Under the magic of my Invisibility spell, I slipped past the large, dirty man smoking weed outside of the boarded-up tourist shop fashioned after a Lighthouse. It was on one of the less busier streets in the Southeast Downtown area, where the cityline met the coast and long, weathered parkways led out towards Plymouth, Massachusetts. Despite it being fairly early in the day, the sun bright behind Brockton's depressing overcast, there weren't too many people out on the street.
Except the homeless. Probably why they chose this spot.
My footsteps were quiet as I entered the messy building, and immediately, the scent of piss, musk, weed, and sex surged past my silver mask and invaded my nostrils, nearly causing me to gag. The inside was dim, damn near dark, and there was an almost damp feeling to the air.
What used to be the main lobby of a tourist shop had been turned into a trash den of lust and laziness, torn up couches and soiled mattresses leaning against toppled over shelves that had once been used to sell Brockton Bay snow globes and coffee cups.
I could count at least a dozen people writhing on the mildew-covered furniture, mostly men with a few select women shared amongst them. The air was thick with smoke despite its wetness, some of the hobos shooting up or smoking from dirty crack pipes even as they panted and groaned, pumping into greasy gash.
It was fucking disgusting.
But there was no sign of Skidmark, or Squealer.
That is, until I heard the muffled sound of screaming coming from upstairs.
The building was a two-story - most likely a mom and pop that was abandoned at some point during its infancy. Assuming the first floor was the actual shop…
I coasted to the back, taking the rickety wooden staircase two steps at a time. It groaned at my touch, but the sound of sex and drug-use was so loud behind me that I had no fear of being found out, as invisible as I was. Gently, I pulled Lich Bane from where the daggers were sheathed behind the small of my back, hidden beneath my raven-feathered cloak.
They hummed eagerly in my grasp.
Just as I reached the top and was reaching for the lone door that separated me from my prey, it suddenly slammed open with splintering force, nearly tearing itself from the rusted hinges. A tall, spindly body in a dirty brown overcoat and hoodie went flying down the staircase with a hoarse, fearful scream - one that was sickeningly choked off by the brutal crack of skull against wood.
Standing, hunched down and practically taking up the entire doorway, was a massive suit of rusted up metal armor that seemed like it was made entirely from discarded scrap. The man inside the armor was ugly with a capital U, greasy black hair tied back out of a pale, sickly, pock-covered face that seemed both fat and gaunt at the same time. Welding goggles were the only thing that 'protected' his identity.
Trainwreck… one of Coil's men, if Sal were to be believed. A mole working as a double agent in the Merchants.
Unbidden, a small, rakish smile formed beneath my mask.
This had just gotten a lot more interesting.
"FUCKIN' NO-DICK PUSSY BUILT FAGGOT! Fuck! Close the fucking door, pizza face, 'fore you let all the good air out. Sherr, start rolling another blunt-"
It took some careful maneuvering, but I managed to shoot forward and twist around Trainwreck's bulk right before he slammed the already broken door shut. Smoothly, I eased backwards into the dim studio apartment room, each three steps of mine matched evenly by one thumping advancement from the big metal man. As soon as I felt myself step out into the wider room, I twisted on my heel and moved out of the way of Trainwreck's lumbering form.
What I saw was mostly the same. Dirty, dingy, musky, it was clear that no one here knew about the wonders of Febreeze and air purifiers. Most notably, this room was clearly where they kept their stash - there were fucking duffel bags of drugs, and not just meth. Cocaine bricks, weed, little zips stuffed with colorful candy that just had to be MDMA…
It was a drug fiend's paradise. And judging by the stacks of cash messily strewn over one of the tables, they didn't know the beauty of electronic banking, either.
My target was half collapsed into the pillowy lap of a blonde-haired, big tittied crackwhore - Squealer, or 'Sherr' as he referred to her as. She could've been considered 'hot' a few years ago, before the meth and crack rotted out her teeth and covered her skin in wrinkles and infected sores, but I wasn't here for her body.
It was her mind that I was after. Or, at least, that bulbous little organ of hers that made her into a super mechanic. We needed that.
Squealer's voice was high and whiny as she followed her boyfriend's directive, grabbing a handful of nugs from the sack of weed near her feet and dropping it into a hand grinder. "Skidsy… don't ya think you were a lil' hard on Tommy? If it's those guido fucks hittin' our safehouses, and they're capes-"
"Ain't no fuckin' 'ifs', Sherr. I'm not no fuckin' retard!" Skidmark growled, shoving his grubby hand deep into the overflowing depths of the mechanic's cleavage. When he wrenched it back out, he had a tiny dime bag of cocaine pinched between his fingers. "God damn it! Those fuckers press me for a key of crystal, took my shit, started upsellin' it to our people-"
He ripped the bag open, spilling white powder all over both him and Squealer. Ignoring the wasted drug, and money, Skidmark snorted a clump of the cocaine directly off of his dirty, crooked fingernail. "Ahhh FUCK! They took my shit, Sherr, took my shit, sold it for more than I fuckin' do, and- and they ain't even give me my cut! Now they wanna bite my hand, that crow fucker bustin' up my territory?! SHITSTAINS!"
As his voice rose into another belligerent scream, Squealer jerked back, spilling half-grinded weed all over herself. "Fuck! Stop screamin', Skids! You're makin' me waste bud!"
"Fuck up and keep grindin', bitch. Oi, pizza face - bring me a brick of powder! Jameson's dumbass won't notice if the weight's off a lil' bit."
"Eyup."
I watched as Trainwreck approached the table weighed down by the overabundance of drugs, and by proxy, me. I'd already moved the duffel bag of cash and a bag of weed off near the boarded up window whilst Bonnie and Clyde vocalized their frustrations, but it didn't seem like I'd have time to move the rest of it before I had to act. My invisibility would be broken the instant I used another spell that required concentration, or I attacked anyone.
My eyes flickered between the broken couch my prey and target lounged on, over to the sawed off shotgun and pistol resting on the coffee table in front of them, and then to the lumbering Trainwreck.
I went through a couple quick calculations in my head.
'Stab, disintegrate, Bladesong, disarm, stab some more… I can do that.'
Too bad I wouldn't need to use any of my shiny new Third Level Spells.
"Hurry the fuck up, Trainwreck!"
"I'm on it," the ugly brute in the metal armor grunted, licking his thick, cracked lips with his tongue. He leered over the table, one oversized gauntlet reaching forward to grip the entire bag full of cocaine-
And that's when Lich Bane found purchase inside of his chest armor.
I could feel the exact moment my Invisibility dissipated - it happened right as I lunged forward and jerked the glass-like blades hilt deep into the rusted, folded scrap the junkyard Tinker called 'power armor'. Duffel bags went flying as he tried to jerk away from me, cocaine spilling across the floor and sending puffs of white up into the air, but Skidmark and Squealer were slow on the uptake and I could feel the way my daggers wanted to release their pent-up magic…
So I let them.
CRAAAACK!
The explosion of crimson energy and whirling, razor-glass rang out cartoonishly loud, like someone had just dropped a mirror from a second floor balcony. Trainwreck was barely even able to utter a scream of shock and agony before the destructive magic turned the upper half of his torso into ash, slag, and shreds of bloody meat chunks. The jagged shards of Lich Bane whipped through the air like a miniature tornado, showering the coke bricks in crimson fluid, before coalescing back down into twin blades.
In only a second, the hulking Case 53 was reduced to an ugly, pale head, a stump of a neck, and the still standing lower half of power armor.
"WHAT THE FUCK-"
Activating my Bladesong was as simple as swaying my body to the beat of my heart, excited and strong, pounding away in the depths of my chest. The muscles in my legs tightened, and then relaxed, and an invisible sheen of arcane energy coalesced around my body like a shroud of wind.
When I darted forward, it was with an unnatural swiftness not dissimilar to a bird in flight.
BANG!
BANG!
Skidmark's pistol cracked, two bullets ripping through the dank air a couple inches to my left and penetrating the peeling wall. Those clumsy shots were the last ones the trembling, inebriated rat would be able to get off, because in the next moment I was soaring over the back of the couch, using Squealer's screeching body as a springboard to slam a sharp drop kick against her boyfriend's wrist. His weak, brittle bone cracked, the pistol flying, and I landed on the balls of my feet, swayed back in time with my heartbeat, and snatched the dirty gun out of the air.
Squealer went for the sawed-off beside me, and as I pointed the pistol at Shitmark, I pressed the tip of Lich Bane against her greasy, dirty neck and forced her back onto the couch.
She gulped, audibly loud, and Skidmark let out an agonized groan. "F-fuckin'- my wrist! You sack of donkey cock, you broke my FUCKING WRIST!"
"That I did. Anyways, good afternoon amici. While your useless hobos fuck and suck downstairs, too loud to hear your cries, do you mind if we speak? Gangster to… gangsters, you see."
There was a small silver notification in the corner of my vision - almost definitely a Quest Reward - but I kept my eyes on the prize. The System could wait until I was done here.
I could see the instant Skidmark debated between risking a bullet to the temple by spitting at me, and playing ball. His cheeks hollowed out, wide, bloodshot eyes flickering from the barrel of the pistol, up to my face, and back down again… but, in the end, he was truly a hyena amongst lions. The courage to fight against someone so clearly superior to him in both firepower and skill just wasn't in him, unless he had overwhelming odds that unabashedly put him in some position of dominance.
The disgusting rat swallowed his saliva, before curling his lips back into an ugly, buck-toothed snarl. "You got a lotta FUCKIN' nerve comin' and tryna fuck up my shit, you greaseball bitch. After all I did for you and your brother! You killin' MY boys?! Takin' MY drugs?"
The insults washed over me like a misty rain, because half of my attention was laser-focused on Squealer. Whatever the case may be, she was clearly more sober than Skidmark was - and me killing Trainwreck and forcing a dagger up against her throat did wonders in flushing the rest of the high out of her system. Now she was deathly pale, less confident in her survival without her vehicles, and damn near hyperventilating in place.
As Skidmark's scratchy, English-accented voice reached a shrill cry, something dark passed over the blonde woman's face. She twitched, her own plump, cracked lips peeling up into an angered grimace. "Skids, shut the fuck up! You know full well what those bastards did a couple days ago, dumbass. I ain't tryna die 'cause of you!"
That brought him up short. Skidmark paused mid-tirade, running his tongue over his teeth. "... What they do? Damn it, Sherr, I run shit here! I be too busy worryin' about Pussy Number One and Two!"
"They smoked Lung, asshole! Cut his fuckin' head off! Them and that one dog bitch, Hellhound." Her foggy blue eyes roamed back up to me, pupils dilated like a cat looking at a slobbering pitbull. When my masked face didn't turn away, she did so first, ducking her head to the side so she didn't slice herself open on my blade. "All the boys were talkin' 'bout it. Fuck! Just give him what he wants-"
"FUCK NO!"
"Damn it! Your lil' doodoo marks ain't gonna help us here you belligerent fuckwad! Give him the fuckin' drugs!"
"FUCK YOU, AND FUCK THIS AL CAPONE WANNAB-"
BANG!
Blood and brain matter exploded out the back of Skidmark's shattered skull, the single 9mm round having done its utmost to turn the inside of his head into slurry. Any weapon attack made by me, per Warmaster's Bracer, was enhanced to a dramatic degree - and the fairly standard ammunition of this Glock 17 was given a few substantial upgrades to its penetrative power purely by stint of me holding the gun in my hand.
His scrawny, malnourished body flopped back and over the coffee table, spilling a bottle of Crown Royal onto the stained brown rug.
Squealer screamed.
"Capone was American-Italian; a gangster who made his legacy in Chicago, during the late 1920s," I casually spoke over the mechanic's shrill cry, "His reign ended when he contracted syphilis and had a stroke. I was born in Sicily, and am immune to diseases - it offends me to be called Scarface's imitation."
"You-" Squealer gulped, any and all signs of inebriation gone with the snuffed life of her drug-addled lover. "You killed him. You killed Skidsy…"
"I did."
A gesture from my left pinky and a murmured word of power had my Mage Hand materialize, floating, at my side. I passed Skidmark's Glock 17 over to it, and the apparition smoothly ejected the magazine and cleared the chamber, sending a jammed casing skidding across the floor. At my mental nudge, it carried the pistol over to the other duffel bags and dropped the unloaded weapon inside.
All the while, Squealer followed the violet hand with her wide, shellshocked gaze. I had to lower Lich Bane before it cut a line across her throat.
"Aye, pay attention." I snapped my fingers, and she jerked back, blonde hair whipping around like a halo as she looked back up at me.
"Wha- shit. SHIT! You killed him-"
For the first time, I felt my impatience shine through. "We're not doing this again, signora…"
"No, let me finish! If you killed Skids, but I ain't dead yet…" Squealer worked her jaw, chewing on some type of gum as she squinted her red-rimmed eyes up at me. "W-what, you want me to work for ya or somethin'? You and that brother of yours? Ain't no other reason you'd spare a lil' ole' wrench wench like me…"
She blinked slowly, turning around to glance back at where my hand was loading all of the highly illegal contraband near the window. When Squealer turned back towards me, it was with a shaky, vaguely nauseating smile. It could've been considered 'seductive' if she was even remotely fuckable to me, but-
A flash of golden-spun hair, crystal blue eyes, and pink, pouty, kissable lips flickered through my head. The beautiful face of a girl my age, a blush on her cheeks as she took a stupid fake flower from my fingertips.
Yeah, no.
I liked blondes, but not this one.
"You killed Trainwreck, that fuck-ugly bastard. But I'm alive. It just ain't for tinkerin', is it? 'Cause you woulda kept him too! You fuckin' perv, I bet I know where your eyes are lookin'..." Some sort of strange, womanly confidence pushing her fear to the back of her mind, Squealer leaned forward, pressing her - admittedly impressive - biceps around the shell of her massive, slightly saggy tits and nearly popped them out of her grease-stained tank top.
"Y'all wanna run a train on me? Hmm? Bet you and your brother's a lot better than that fucker in the dick department."
If I was many, many times more desperate for pussy than I was, maybe I would have given it some thought. No one had come upstairs yet, despite the gunshots and screams, and if you covered her face with a paper bag, plugged your nose and ears, and focused entirely on the breasts… Squealer was hot.
But-
"As generous of an offer as that is, Squealer…" I finally sat down, withdrawing Lich Bane fully and sheathing it alongside its sibling, "Business comes before pleasure for me, and I'm solidly in business 'till Brockton Bay keens beneath my heel. I want you to join us, yes, but sex isn't a part of the sales pitch."
Her nose wrinkled at the rejection, but the phrasing was polite enough not to completely stomp on her self-confidence. The woman was disgustingly easy to read, her emotions worn on her sleeves just like Sal. She was intrigued, if not by the power I've shown here then by the fact that we'd killed Lung only a couple nights prior. That, and the fact that we were clearly criminals taking our jobs seriously.
"Then what is? Hell, what do I even call you? Streets are sayin' 'Hexlord', but they also say you had a crow…" She crossed her arms beneath her chest, cocking an eyebrow in my direction. Sassy.
I chuckled. "Corvo is a raven. And he's currently outside, making sure we aren't interrupted by the cops or heroes."
Distantly, from outside the window, there was a muffled 'caw' and the flapping of wings. Squealer jumped, startled by the sudden noise, and when she looked at me again, there was a caution girding her newfound confidence. That was good; I wanted her to talk to me, and be seen as a useful resource instead of a disposable tool, but I couldn't have her looking down her nose or getting cocky.
I pushed on before she could get a word in, leaning forward and resting my elbows on my knees. "Here's the deal: Cavalier and I, we are criminals from out of town. Our Family bade us 'leave the nest', so to speak, and so we've set our sights on Brockton Bay to act as the foundation for our criminal syndicate. Like all burgeoning groups, however… we need manpower, we need resources, and we need-"
"Tinkers," Squealer breathed, her lips pursing in thought. "Y'all hunted down Skidsy, hit our drug-houses, and kicked in our base… just to recruit me?"
The cautious pride in her voice was amusing, in a sad, puppydog way. "Not just for you, Squealer. His drugs, his money, his guns… we can use his resources a hundred times better than Skidmark ever could. That includes you."
She flinched at my blunt admission, hackles raising defensively. "Listen here, buddy - I ain't nobody's fuckin' 'resource'!"
"You were his," I gestured towards Skidmark's cooling body with a slight tilt of my head, and the reminder caused Squealer to grimace. "And from what I can tell, he treated you like some kind of druggified sex slave. Rolling his joints. Warming his… mattress. You've got all those crazy, badass ideas in your head. Huge, dangerous, loud, amazing creations. Don't you want to see them come to life?"
"Yeah, but…"
The silence was telling, and so was the scratching. Squealer began scratching at the underside of her forearms as she bit her lip hard enough to draw blood, staring blankly at me. The idea was an attractive one to her, most likely, but the shift from Merchant whore to whatever we represented was not just a scary one - it was intimidating, too. I knew how I looked, especially with my magic making my clothing even more pristine.
The blood and brain from executing Skidmark and Trainwreck had already been cleaned from my mask and suit, and my dress shoes glinted in the dim lighting of the room.
There were levels to this shit, and she probably thought she'd be getting way in over her head as a druggie, diseased mechanic with split ends.
I had to bring this home. The alternative was knocking the bitch out and kidnapping her.
My voice was gentler when I spoke again. "One of the businesses we're looking into creating is a medicinal one, centered around Tinkertech curatives. We have one other Tinker already, and he is phenomenal. Incredibile. One such curative he's made can cure all diseases and afflictions with one drink."
Squealer's body stiffened, the scratching ceasing in the very instant I mentioned the potion. Her breathing became heavier, faster, and she swallowed a wad of spit that sounded vaguely painful going down her throat. "Bullshit."
Desperation.
Behind my mask, I felt my lips stretch into a wolfish grin. This was what I was waiting for.
"Try it yourself. Consider it a blatant and shameless bribe."
While Corvo and I had been busy hunting down the rats, my Statue had his own directive: Keep. Fucking. Working. The litany of health potions had slowed down a little in production due to there only being a finite amount of hyacinth and bugloss in Brockton Bay, but inbetween that minor shortage, my Statue had concocted a few new types of potions.
Potions of Cure Disease.
I'd originally thought that concocting such a potion would be an extremely difficult endeavor, considering the lack of Elder Scrolls-unique creatures on Earth Bet, but the System seemed to have taken that into consideration when granting me the Alchemic Prodigy perk. The body parts from real-world equivalents, when charged with my magic, were good enough substitutes.
The feather of a hawk and the charred, burnt hide of a rat, combined together with purified water and a lot of love, made for a bubbling pinkish-purple potion that both cured all diseases and instilled the imbiber with health. A sort of mix between Cure Disease and Healing.
That very expensive potion was the one I now dangled in front of Squealer, who'd almost went cross-eyed to stare at the glistening glass bottle. Hope, desperation, and an all-encompassing muck of self-pity had her face warped with one of the most painfully bipolar faces I'd ever seen, and her dirty fingernails actually drew blood when she stabbed them into her arms.
"You ain't fuckin' with me, are you? 'Cause I swear, I don't give a rat's shit if you end up cuttin' my head off and stickin' your cock in the bleedin' hole - I will haunt your ass from beyond the grave if this is some sick 'haha' hazing bullshit." Her voice, previously squirrely and high-pitched like a middle-aged woman trying to sound 'young and cute', dropped to a low, wavering Southern drawl.
The alchemist in me almost felt offended at the accusation.
"I don't joke about my products, signora."
"'Signora' my asshole, Mister Fancy-Pants 'Hexlord'. You ain't the one in my shoes! I can't- I don't know if-" Squealer breathed harshly through her nostrils, blinking away tears that she barely even seemed cognizant of. "This could be anything. If y'all got a drug Tinker workin' for ya, and you want me to join your fuckin' mafia group or whatever, t-this could be Masterin' juice for all I know! This ain't…"
Her shoulders slumped, fingers scratching at her arms again. "This ain't s'posed to be easy. But I want it. God, I want it. I fuckin' hate this!"
God, was she about to have a panic attack?
… A lot needed to be unpacked here, but-
Loud, rapid knocks on the door caused Squealer to almost headbutt the potion out of my hand with how close she'd leaned in towards it. The door, having already been broken by Trainwreck earlier, was damn near close to collapsing inwards.
A deep, slurred voice drifted through the cracks. "Boss? Aye, boss, y'said we were gettin' some more sniff-sniff today, huh? The boys needa get topped off again, hehe, and not by that white bitch you got either!"
Squealer went to say something - probably tell the druggie outside exactly where he could shove it - but I quickly raised my hand to cut her off.
"Quiet. Stay here, work through whatever mental block is stopping you from curing years of disease and health issues, and make a decision. I'm taking this bottle when I'm done downstairs, and you can decide whether it's empty or full when I do."
I stood, leaving the potion on the cluttered coffee table. Squealer followed me with her eyes, her head not moving, purposely looking anywhere but the goldmine I was leaving in plain sight. "Y'know they got guns, right? We ain't got a lot, but there's a few AKs down there."
Her casual disregard for the lives of the other Merchants - and Skidmark's, now that I thought about it - gave me the last little bit of context I needed to figure out Squealer's work life.
The picture wasn't a pretty one.
"Don't worry about me-"
"Skidmark! What th' fuck… who's in there? Who's that whisperin'? Aye, boss!"
"Worry about yourself. Choose wisely, Squealer - 'cause if you stiff me, there isn't a hole this side of Brockton Bay that you'll be able to hide in."
"'IGHT, FUCK IT- I'M COMIN' IN!"
I drew one of my own pistols the second the door was kicked in, and aimed an easy bead directly at head-level. The man who forced his way in was big, black, and had a wild, tangled gray beard patched with a sickly yellow - whether from drinking piss or a botched dye job, I had no clue. What I did know was that his blood was the same wine-red as any other, when my gun sang and an empowered bullet dug a fleshy tunnel through the middle of his face.
I swept forward as his body tipped backwards, crashing down the staircase and coating the rotten wood with the inside of his skull. With the door open, I could hear the sound of confused and belligerent voices getting louder and louder, along with footsteps pounding roughly in our direction. One half of Lich Bane was palmed in my right gloved hand, held in a reverse grip that propped my left gun hand up to center mass.
Things were about to get bloody… but I honestly couldn't find it in me to care all that much about the increased body count I was about to rack up. If all went well, no one would be able to trace it back to me anyway.
"It came from upstairs!"
"The fuck's going on?!"
"DAMN- bitch, you bit my fucking cock!"
BANG!
The first head I saw peek into the dank stairwell as I began descending the staircase got a 9mm round to the dome piece, and his life's blood painted the wall behind him red. The screams inside of the shop became even louder at the sudden death, and I knew, from both experience and auditory cues, that I only had a moment of peacefulness before shit properly popped off.
As opposed to fear… all I felt was a deep, blood-pumping, all-encompassing excitement.
'System, if you're to grant me my rewards, there is no better time than now. Open the fucking notif.'
[HIDDEN QUEST COMPLETED: SOOTHSAYER]
[RESCUE DINAH ALCOTT FROM COIL'S MERCENARIES.]
[REWARD: 1x Minor Dominion Perk]
Spoiler: Minor Dominion Perk
… What?
I stumbled on the last step as my veins suddenly became alight with an ice-cold fire, one that funneled its way from the tips of my toes all the way up to the crown of my fucking skull. Oddly enough, the feeling was… warm instead of painful, but also bone-chillingly cold as well. And my eyes - my fucking eyes were itchy, burning hot tears immediately turning my vision blurry.
"H-he's right here!"
"What the fuck?! Get him!"
Three male blurs, roughly as tall or a bit shorter than me, stumbled into the stairwell and honed in on me. Blurred vision or not, my instincts were sharp enough to immediately dead-eye and ice the taller one on the far left with one bullet from my gun, but the other two let out fearful, drunken roars of faux courage and bum rushed me from the doorway. I'd be able to get another shot off, but Lich Bane was already humming with magic.
I'd need to dispatch them quickly before the others got a handle on the situation and turned the doorway into a killbox.
… They're slow.
I blinked, and instantly, the blur was gone.
And I could see the two hobos with a crystal-clear acuity that put even Corvo's avian vision to shame.
The Sharingan.
It wasn't that they were slow… it was that my eyes, and by proxy my mind, enhanced my perceptive abilities to such a level that my brain translated my eyes' newfound supernatural prowess into a sort of 'bullet time'. Time wasn't slowed, and the thugs were moving at normal speeds, but my reaction time was so much higher that they might as well have been flailing kids attempting to swing at me with sticks. Now, though, I could see that they were carrying lead pipes and rusted machetes.
My gaze flickered between the two of them as they were mid-charge, only a foot or two away. Idiot 1 and Idiot 2.
I grinned.
And then my body reacted.
Idiot 1's double-handed swing with the lead pipe was powerful, a testament to his stout frame, but my Sharingan tracked its flight path with contemptuous ease. I ducked into the attack, the rusted metal just barely smacking the air over my curly brown hair, and firmly slammed my foot onto the ground between his wide, clumsy stance. I twisted, invading the bastard's nonexistent guard, wrapped my left arm around his lower chest, and jerked downwards with all of the considerable strength in my new, divine body.
CRACK.
His spine broke in half like a kit-kat.
My eyes flickered to the right, and I swung Lich Bane up just in time to parry the battered edge of Idiot 2's machete. He was screaming unintelligible, vulgar slurs, but I could barely hear him over the singing of my own blood. His blade slammed against mine again - once, then twice, but the third time saw me slip Lich Bane down the chipped metal, throwing his angle off just enough for me to knick the vein in his wrist.
"AGH-"
Lich Bane screamed its glass shattering war cry, crimson magic exploding forward alongside shards of unnaturally clear metal, and it was like a molten super-shotgun went off on the poor fucker's arm.
It simply ceased to be.
And I palmed my pistol with my left, forcing it through the bloody mist and vestigial magical energy in order to kiss his lips with the hot barrel.
One more bullet, another snare for my orchestra, and Idiot 2's light was snuffed.
In many a work of fiction, I'd imagine this would be the time the hero - or, in my case, the villain - would take a moment to breathe. I'd just dispatched three men in the span of two, maybe three seconds, and there were so many new sensations going on in my body that I felt like I was twelve again, seeing my first pair of tits. But this was real fucking life, my real life, and dirty, meth-sucking hobos didn't wait for the bell.
Behind me, from the tourist shop proper, I heard the sound of guns being cocked before my Sharingan bade me to actually turn and look.
Instantly, I disregarded the ones holding pipes or knives, because they were infinitely lower on the totem pole when it came to threats. There had to have been at least four motherfuckers with guns, though - half naked or damn near with rags cinched tightly around their arms or thighs. They were dirty, unshaven, and clearly high and scared out of their fucking minds, but even a fucking monkey could shoot an AK if you taught it how to pull the trigger.
Despite the dim lighting of the room, my new eyes cut through the gloom like a laser beam. I saw them all, at that very moment. I probably saw more of them than they'd ever seen of themselves in any sort of mirror. Twelve enemy combatants in total: four standing or crouching behind cover with pistols, an SMG, and a sawed-off, while the other eight cowered in a rough half-circle outside of the line of fire, either hovering with melee weapons or attempting to hide amongst stained mattresses and sheets.
There were naked, cum and sweat-caked women, too. Crackheads and prostitutes, if I had to guess. My hyper-focused mind disregarded them for now.
More importantly, I looked at the position of the guns. How they were turned. How the short, skinny asshole on the far left had his Beretta tilted at an angle that would throw off the trajectory of his aim. How their fingers twitched against the trigger well, and the sweat beaded down the sides of their faces. I could see one of the gunmen swallow, and my eyes, with disgusting clarity, tracked the bob of his Adam's apple as the saliva went down his esophagus.
I knew, roughly, where the bullets would go when they shot, if only for a moment. And I used my natural-born confidence to nut up and make a play.
I wouldn't lose tonight.
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
I wasn't fast enough to dodge bullets, I knew that on a fundamental level, but my body's natural speed, combined with my Bladesong, combined with the scarily enhanced perceptive and reflexive capabilities of the Sharingan… definitely made it seem like I did. I darted into the room amidst the hail of gunfire, but my path had already been planned out in those very scant few heartbeats my eyes had taken in the room, and my prediction turned out to be accurate.
To a fault.
I swayed to my left, feeling a rush of heat and wind ahead of me as the SMG gangster emptied half a magazine in the spot I had just been standing. There was no time to think, no time to do anything but trust my breathing, trust my body, trust my Song, and trust my eyes.
A sharp twist and a side-roll, and I broke line of sight and avoided another trio of gunshots. I leaped forward, nearly tripping over a wet pile of clothes, and felt the burn of another shot skidding off the side of my hip and drawing a thin, hot line of blood directly through my Mage Armor. The idiot with the tilted Beretta fired wildly in my direction, but his fucked up trajectory made the trio of bullets slide just past my nose.
I smelled the burning metal.
But, like a dark wraith with eyes that shone scarlet, I pushed off on the tip of my feet, ignoring the stinging in my side, and dead sprinted the rest of the short distance to the panicked and screaming gunmen.
"WHAT THE HELL IS HE-"
"IGNIS!"
My Firebolt was more akin to a Firecannon, with the way that it blasted from the sharp slash of Lich Bane. The dagger hummed its bloodlust as the ambient magic supercharged its blade, and as the SMG-wielding goon went down screaming, clutching his charred and blackened face, I bent backwards, avoiding another goon's pistol whip, and jammed Lich Bane into the offending bastard's chest.
The blade had already begun glowing crimson when I let go of the hilt and flipped backwards, only just avoiding an attempted sneak attack by one of the pipe-wielding hobos. Lich Bane loudly expunged its destructive magic into the dying man's chest, ripping into the wooden floorboards beneath his dying body, and I took the opportunity to place my pistol against the back of pipe-wielding asshole's head and blow his brains out the front end.
My eyes flickered left and right, and glinted.
"S-shit… ShitshitshitSHITTTT!"
The skinny asshole with the Beretta rushed me from the side, tripping over the bodies of his dead comrades, but I had already seen him coming moments prior. Words of magical power coalesced atop my tongue.
When he squeezed the trigger, the bullets only pierced through the silvery-white mist that I left behind.
The other half of Lich Bane, the left dagger, plugged a ten inch deep hole into the back of the dumbass' spine, severing something very critical for fundamental motor function. I ripped the dagger out of his back, carving a bloody trench up his shoulder blades in order to wrap my arm around his neck. Bloody froth bubbled from the corners of his lips, spilling onto my expensive suit sleeve, but I ignored the disrespect in favor of tightening my grip and jerking his paralyzed body up in the direction of the fat guy swinging around the sawed-off.
BOOM!
Slivers of flesh and bone chips flew through the air as the pellets flayed my meat shield alive, peeling apart the threadbare jacket and skin covering his chest cavity. The fat guy blanched, scrambling to duck back into cover, but my draw was quicker than his feet. One shot to the knee sent him stumbling to the floor, and another sent his soul to heaven whilst his skull bled gray goop and crimson onto the floorboards.
I tossed my meat shield to the ground beside him, and his Beretta followed suit.
For a moment, there was only the sound of heavy, frightened breathing, the crying of terrified women, and the low, animalistic groans of my Fire Bolt victim. I glanced back, aimed my pistol at his writhing, convulsing body, and emptied the magazine.
He shut up.
"Five," I breathed, the scent of iron thick and rancid in my nostrils. "Five of you gutter rats are dead. Killed by one person. None of you are capes. None of you are powerful. Do you truly want to keep throwing your lives away?"
Let it be known that I wasn't some completely merciless, cold blooded killer. Not entirely.
I hadn't forgotten that we needed runners. Not everyone needed to die today.
Seven thugs remained, and not a single one looked ready to scream 'Leeroy Jenkins' and charge me. They panted at the edge of the bloodbath, bodies heaving and fists tight around various weapons - both metal and wooden. I could see one of them, a tall, broader bald man with a scar on his chin, eyeing a pistol that had skidded closer to his side of the room. He seemed like the only one who'd noticed it.
Foolish. But his stupidity made for a decent opportunity.
I fully turned my head towards him, making the gesture overt, and he practically lunged for the weapon.
"Immobilis."
I flashed my dagger in an hourglass-like motion, and a pulse of purplish magic shuddered around the bald man's body. He abruptly froze mid-dive as arcane chains wrapped tightly around his chest and limbs, suspending and binding him in mid-air. Gasps broke out amidst the peanut gallery at the casual display of magic, and I noted that one guy in particular - a short, lanky Hispanic boy about nineteen or twenty - seemed especially amazed.
"Is… is Jack dead, too?" The boy questioned quietly, his voice hoarse and scratchy from obvious cigarette abuse. "Motherfucker was an asshole, but…"
I snorted, walking over to the man currently paralyzed by my Hold Person spell.
Curiously, his floating body didn't shift when I sat on his back and crossed my ankle over my knee. "Jack's alive, like the rest of you. For now. How long that stays true depends on how big that meth's made you think your balls are."
My head was beginning to pound, and intrinsically, I knew that it was due to how much I was using my Sharingan. That… cold fire I'd felt in my veins, it had to have been my 'chakra', or whatever equivalent the System decided to give me. Possibly just concentrated mana? And if what I knew about the Naruto anime was any sort of accurate, turning my magical eyes 'off' was as simple as ceasing the flow, like putting a kink in a water hose. Quick Learner made me a natural talent at whatever skill or ability I put my mind to, and that increase in brain power came in handy twicefold here.
I swiftly found that upwards flow of cold-hot energy and cut it off. The spiritual equivalent to unplugging a cable from an electric outlet.
Immediately, everything became dull. Dark. Lifeless. But I was used to the sensitivity shift after melding with Corvo, and barely noticed it. I wouldn't need the Sharingan to beat these guys, anyway. If push came to shove, and I hoped it didn't… Well, there was a reason why I memorized Fireball this morning.
Every Wizard needed a Fireball slot.
"… Fuck it! I'm not beating a fucking cape." The same short boy, obviously the belligerent group's unspoken spokesperson, threw his lead pipe down and tossed his gloved hands up. "I didn't sign up for this shit anyways, man! I'm just a runner. Skidmark had me sellin' down near ABB territory, but it's too hot over there. Ain't nobody think to call me and say 'aye, Hector, boss is gettin' raided by one of the fuckers who iced Lung'?!"
"You saw him. Bastard musta snuck in while we were gettin' high and fuckin'." One of the other men spat to the side, a frustrated sneer on his lips.
At 'Hector's' disgusted glance, he barked out a derisive laugh. "Don't look at me like that, gay boy. Just 'cuz you don't like wet gash don't mean we needa be a saint like your faggot ass."
Hector scowled, his tan face visibly heating up. Shorter than the other men, and slender too, he was the only other person in the room besides me that actually had a full set of clothes on. Ripped jeans, worn sneakers, a dark red hoodie that rested snug over what seemed like a gray sweater, and a black beanie so low that it almost covered his eyes, the boy was so covered up that I almost couldn't even tell his ethnicity.
It was the thick accent that gave it away.
"Aye, f-fuck you! You wanna call me that shit again, puta?!" Apparently forgetting about the bloodbath in front of him, Hector squared up with his heckler, who just grinned and shoved the smaller boy away with ease.
"Bet you'd like that, huh you fuckin' spic puss-"
BANG!
This time, I used the fallen Beretta.
Blood splattered against Hector's face, and he let out a shocked yelp, stumbling back and wiping at his eyes. If I was more of a psychopathic sadist, I imagined I would've found the scene more amusing than not. As it was, I only spared the corpse one bored, vaguely annoyed glance before turning to look at Hector and the other thugs.
"And then there were six," I sighed, smoothly ejecting the magazine from the Beretta. "Listen, and listen fucking well. I am Hexlord, one half the killer of Lung, and I have a proposition for those of you not as stupid and annoying as that cooling corpse down by your feet. What was his name, Hector?"
"Uh, Bill!" the Hispanic boy breathed, his voice dazed and confused.
My lips curled up into a smirk. "Yeah, Bill. Don't be Bill. But if you want to work for a boss with real power, unlike that dead shitstain of a cockroach you call 'Skidmark'… You can drop those useless weapons, put some motherfucking clothes on, square your shoulders, and step forward. I don't know what sort of life you've lived in the 'Merchants', where you spend your afternoons humping whores and shooting up. Honestly, I don't want to know. But with me, there will be money being made and territories being held. With me, you'll earn real respect from the streets. With me, the entire East Coast will know who you are and what you represent. But that future only starts with you. Make a choice."
I stood again, willing my exhausted body not to stumble, and canceled my concentration on the Hold Person spell.
Jack faceplanted with a grunt, and I jerked him back up to his feet by the back of his yellowed wife beater. He looked up into the eyeholes of my mask, anger and humiliation battling for dominance on his sallow face. For a moment, I thought that I'd miscalculated the pacing of my speech, and that I'd be down to the bare minimum needed to complete the quest.
But then, Jack's gaze narrowed, an ugly grin formed on his lips, and something like respect burned in his eyes.
"Aye, if'n you sayin' money and bitches is involved, Jacky boy's in." He grunted, wiping his palm on his shirt before offering me his dirty hand.
I shook it firmly.
A larger man, a couple inches taller than Sal, stepped forward. He was shirtless, fat, and hairy, but I could see the telltale signs of muscle in his chest and shoulders. "I quite liked the speech. Skidmark never gave us speeches."
Somehow, his deep, slow, Londoner accent gave me the stereotypical idea that his name was-
"Tommy, Skidmark was a Grade A fuckwad. All the bastard cared about was shootin' up and fucking his girlfriend." Hector snorted, wiping some blood away from his cheek with the back of his hand and peering up in my direction. "But fuck yeah, I'm in. I refuse to keep getting my ass kicked because he gives me used product. I'm fuckin' over that shit, man."
"Oh. 'Kay. Then I'm in too." Tommy slammed his ham-sized fist into his chest, sending ripples through his fat.
Sure enough, like clockwork, the others stepped forward and confirmed their desire to work beneath new leadership. There was Hector, Jack, and Tommy, but also Petey, Jamal, and Kendal. What surprised me the most, however, was one of the hookers - a tall, nearly skeletal ginger woman with pretty green eyes named Jade - requesting the opportunity to join as well, much to the visible pleasure of the men.
Any and all catcalls ended the second I cleared my throat.
But tentatively, I acquiesced. If anything, she could work as an assistant to my Statue in the cooking lab. I wouldn't say no to more bodies if they were offering. And if she wanted to run drugs or handle the tougher jobs instead, well - I'd have to screen her and make sure she was good to go, but everyone under my employ would be healed and cured of any existing ailments, diseases, and addictions, so her chances weren't slim.
We were equal opportunists in the Bucciarati family.
By the time I was walking back upstairs, having directed my new henchmen to hurry up and pack up any remaining drugs, weapon, or cash laying around the tourist shop, I already had more notifications waiting for me in the corner of my eye. I ignored them for now, passing through the broken doorway and looking around for Squealer.
My stomach dropped when I saw nothing but an empty room, and an even emptier glass bottle lying on the coffee table. Skidmark's body was gone, placed somewhere out of sight, but the scent of shit, piss, and gore made it clear that he and Trainwreck was still in the room somewhere.
I exhaled softly, bringing to mind spells that would help me hunt down the bitch-
But before I could properly descend into vengeance mode, the bathroom door swung open, and some hot, buxom blonde woman in rags walked out, steam billowing after her.
"Hoooh boy- OH FUCK!" She practically jumped two feet in the air, stumbling back against the wall and gripping her chest with her right hand. "Ya fuckin' creepy shithole, you scared me! But… Shit, I can't even fuckin' believe this. The drug, it- it worked! I'm not- FUCK, I'm me again, motherfucker!"
I only had a very brief moment to debate whether or not to move before the overjoyed woman sprinted across the dirty floor, bare feet as the day she was born, and yanked me into a spine-cracking hug that I was able to feel even through my Divine Physiology. That cluster of melodrama and grief that I'd sensed earlier seemed to rear its ugly head once again, as the woman who could only be Squealer squeezed me like her life depended on it, chest-wracking sobs aggressively hammering her body.
"There, there, signora…"
I awkwardly patted her back, but my eyes flickered to the pop-ups that began to fill up my vision. Apparently I'd reached some sort of notification limit?
[QUEST COMPLETED: HAIL TO THE KING]
[DEFEAT SKIDMARK & CONQUER THE MERCHANTS!]
[REWARD: 1x Moderate Might Perk]
[QUEST COMPLETED: THE HELP]
[RECRUIT AT LEAST FIVE HENCHMEN!]
[REWARD: 1x Minor Dominion Perk]
[HIDDEN QUEST COMPLETED: TINKER TICKLER]
[RECRUIT YOUR FIRST TINKER!]
[REWARD: 1x Minor Artifice Perk]
This time, there was no preparing myself for the deluge of perks, and the rewards hit me back to back like an avalanche of magical power. All I could really do was hold on and take it, as per what seemed to be the Celestial System's preferred position when it came to fucking me raw.
At least this time, my surroundings were safe. Relatively speaking.
Why the fuck was Healed Squealer so strong?!