Foiled

Sweetwater Square -  ''The pioneering town of Sweetwater: Young, rather exuberant, and constructed from native materials and imported quarried stone. It spans a relatively flat region south of Providence Gate, nestled within the heart of the Sweetwater Groves - an urban keep within a natural curtain wall''.

''The cobblestone roads built through the settlement is made from paving stones delivered from Nillu's Lode. The recently constructed Sunscale Tavern marks the living heart of the expanding township, sharing the square with a somewhat noisy Cookery, an Alchemist's Store (that people seem to give a wide berth), and various other Mercantiles and services buildings.''

''Cozy homesteads and cottages expand outwards from this central district in all directions. The Farmer's District of Stormclaw can be found to the west, while the aptly named Homestead District of Kilning can be found to the east. The Chapel District of Huntsmoon rests to the southeast, while the Hovel District of Whistlewind is to the southwest''.

''To the direct south, however, is an oddity among townships: a district that is actually just a hill, known as Harvest. This elegant rise of land is known as the Estate District, for atop that hill stands the estate of Waterly House, commanding a view of all around it.'' '''Time of Day: Night. '                            It is the Tenth hour by the Shadow on Riverstretch. The air is stagnant, not stirring with the slightest breeze. A few wispy cirrus clouds streak the otherwise clear sky. The following of the six moons are visible in the sky: Serpent's Eye (violet/waxing), Torch I (gray/waxing). ''

The shoppe's door is firmly closed, when the Duchess approaches it in this late evening - having watched it all week, it's remarkable just how closed it's been.

Simply, no one's come or gone for the last several days - the sleepy town of Sweetwater having few patrons.. and those few who have stopped in, well.. being balked by a door that seems barred from inside.

The windows are lit, at night - the glass cheap and crazed, showing motion within but little more beyond their frosted panes.

However.. the shop has two doors. And only a touch of investigation reveals that the back door, rather than the front, is open - oh, not standing so, but will creak open at a firm touch. New wagon ruts mar the ground there - left from the last rain, and not yet collapsed by wear.

''Patience. Focus.'' These two traits a successful huntress make. For ten days and eleven nights the huntress had waited, stalking the quarry grounds with a hunger and lust that only one thing would give to satisfy. Knowledge. Unfortunately, patience had worn thin. Hungry eyes having not born witness to the activity they had hoped for, Rowena stalks her boots more closely this night beneath the cover of darkness. She pauses at the front door, pressing an ear to the wood and glancing warily to the smudged windows. Chewing skeptically on her lower lip, she watches the street briefly for signs of betrayal, and finding none, slinks along the building's side, towards the back. Her footfalls slow drastically there, gaze lowering to make note of the tell-tale tracks in the mud. "Some sort of transaction has conspired," she muses softly and directs her attention to the hidden object she holds gingerly in her right hand. Very slowly, as stealthily as possible, she bends to the foot of the door and releases the broken jar to the ground.

There are many things that can be said about /nobility/. They are fair. They are strong. They are tall. In the case of a former mikin, they're stubborn like /mule/.

Nowhere in the great stories of ancient noble families, though, is 'quietness' often listed as a gloriously common trait. No.

So despite every best intention, the quiet musing isn't really /that/ quiet, and eager breathing belies Serath's better lessons on the subject of 'not being noticed'. So, when the broken glass is set down, oh so carefully - the clink brings with it ...

... a door that flies open, a lantern held high in the hand of someone in.. burnished armor? Gold. No. Bronze, bronze that glitters and chimes with rings at the motion. And the woman wearing it - her face scarred and leaving her with a perpetual snarl - smiles somewhat grotesquely. "Well. /hello/ there."

"Oh, Light be blessed!" Gasps the kneeling woman, staggering back on one heel away from the sudden glare of light. Squinting upward with a hand pressed into her breast, Rowena breathes a mite more heavily than she was three seconds prior. Her left hand lifts to point and 'shoo' madly in the blinding woman's direction. "Please, Miss, step away! Keep a careful eye to your feet. I've come to see the Master of this shop but the front entrance was of course barred during this hour so I - I do apologize for the boldness, but I did think to come knocking upon the other door and" Trailing off, Rowena climbs to her feet and points with continued urgency to the parasitic carnage that sits mere inches from the other woman's toes. "It caught my eye. I stooped to look of course and oh", disgust runs thickly in her tone now, upper body shuddering once. "Pardon the noise, but I thought best to smash what I could. The shards nearly pierced my leather soles."

The woman's grimace of a smile widens, and she looks down at the broken glass - then proffers a gauntleted hand. "Well. Then perhaps you should come in and meet him." A brow is raised. "Far be it for /me/ to turn away custom, mm?"

From inside comes the sound of muffled sobbing. A thump. There is the faint smell of iron - unmistakeably blood.

Rowena calms her breathing - moderately so - and glances between the sacrificed silverwyrms, the less than welcoming figure that bars her entrance, and the suddenly very ominous sounds that come from within. A glimmer of more genuine fear livens the feigned wildness of her eyes. "Please, is...is he all right? The jar here, it was open, and...well...nefarious things of that nature are typically sold in larger numbers. Look for yourself, there be only two males and one female - gravid, I might add. That means that, that..." Swallowing, she peers past the woman, keeping yet a safer distance between, "there's at least one female that's escaped, quite possibly into the shop itself. I can only imagine that this was an attempt on his life. Please again, Ma'am, do be careful about your feet! Her bite is rather wicked." In efforts to play the bluff, Rowena lifts up her heels and glances worriedly to her own, sweeping the ground in earnest.

"Oh, he is as well as can be expected." The woman advances, her tone taking on a more menacing, commanding air. "And my boots are armored. Perhaps you /should/ come see him, then? What is your name, woman?"

Her intent is obvious- to close distance at that leisurely pace, to reach out and grab the Duchess - but there is no spark of recognition.

Rowena's breath catches in her chest, deciding that yes, perhaps it was wise now to forget the silverwyrm tactics and flee! With steps carefully measured to match the armored woman's own, Rowena tucks one behind the other with a fencer's backpedal and one hand reaches to rest with warning on an exquisitely ornate rapier hilt that a shrugging of her cloak reveals. "It is not my duty nor intention to bring harm to this household," She whispers stoically. "On the contrary, I seek to preserve life. If you find quarrel with this, then it would be wise to forget my presence here and return to your activities inside. I ne'er meant to disturb, afterall." Behind the furtive stare of one who is also familiar with the weight of authority is now the softer edge of a plea. Hope. Hope does have grave tendency to fail, in this era, and so knowing this, Rowena's legs tense at the ready, awaiting her brain's command. Run?

Aha. A /weapon/. This apparently changes things -

The woman in her golden armor stops short, reaches behind her -

And the whisper of leather falling free, a scratch of steel against a boot where a stud tings against metal - that is a Shadowscourge, the weapon grim in promise.

"Why are you here, woman?" Eyes narrow. "And who sends you, armed so on an errand to a shop?"

Rowena nods, silently to herself, her eyes bearing witness to something that would indeed confirm her weeks' suspicions. "Is it not wise for a woman who travels alone at night to give herself a means of protection?" She parries verbally, stepping once aside with a darting glance to the corner of the building. Escape route? "For why is it that you tread in armored boots? To shield your tender soles against being raped by sticks and stones. Such is the reason I keep blades near to tender hips..." Freezing for a moment, she stares pointedly at the scourge's feet, eyes growing more wide. "How thoroughly /does/ that armor extend? Mother silverwyrm does not discriminate between regions of flesh..."

The woman pauses, glancing down - a momentary squeamishness showing regardless of Rowena's initial intent. It is an opportunity, one bound to be fleeting - a moment's indecision...

There are times when it's wiser to be cowardly than be bold. Now is one of those times. Wasting not this half moment in time, Rowena spasms into action. Her hand leaves her weapon in favor of sweeping the cloak from her ankles and scrambling to bolt away through the mud towards the street.

The scourge - for Scourge it is - is not willing to pursue. Her eyes narrow, and she turns for the door - "Thad, Uriah - we've no more time. Finish it and let us be on our way." And back in she goes, the door slamming shut in her wake.

Rowena continues to make fast - and sloppy - tracks for the street and once there, pauses to glance behind. Seeing that she is not pursued as suspected she would be, her brows furrow and she fumbles her fingers into her collar. With shaking hands, she procures the rings and crams one onto each finger. A man's life - if not already ended - was very much threatened. Her desired knowledge would fall silently into his grave. Failure does not rest well with a Duchess. Especially a Mikin one. Fortunately, nature blessed this woman with a prestigious set of lungs. "Help me!" She screams, racing towards the one establishment guaranteed to be lively at this hour. "Guards! I need guards! Murder!"

Oh, that causes a commotion - Sweetwater is a sleepy place, at best - and that's not a cry that comes often.

But the guard here are Sahna's - and let it not be said they're /lax/. Such is not in their nature - and so it is that three men come boiling out of the shelter that represents what passes for a watchhouse here. The 'sergeant' - a lean and somewhat grizzled fellow, likely a former Sellsword, calls - "Here, Mistress!" And it's already with a gesture that he sends the two men with him out to get her, his expression grim and eyes already roving the streets. "Are ye well, then? What goes?"

"The shop!" Rowena cries back, whirling in her run to face the sounds of her would-be saviors. "The alchemist...there in the shop! I think he's dead! Or nearly so!" Panting, she jogs a bit more warily towards the two. "There's a scourge - at least one! I think they - I think they've killed him! Please, be careful...they are still inside!"

And with that - the three start for the shop - "Ye go to the inn, Mistress - will sort this out right enough." Grim indeed, but the sergeant's voice is not ungentle. And he nudges her that way, drawing a blade as the three /immediately/ start for the shop.

From within comes the sound of something breaking. A muffled thump. A figure lands heavily against the leaded windows, trailing something oily and red down the glass as it slumps to the floor.

Rowena remains frozen where she stands, staring with horror at the bloodstained window. "I have to go..." she whispers. "I-I have to help." Taking one trembling step forward after them, she places one palm against her forehead. "Use caution!" She shouts hoarsely. "Despite their tainted intentions, those women have the Light's blessings!" Torn between sending word far and wide and salvaging what she can of evidence from the shop, Rowena paces uneasily. The three find the front door barred - a not unexpected occurrence.

They move to the rear.. and there is a shout, a sudden clash of blades, the sound of violence. A thunder of hooves…

And one horse - hidden somewhere among the cottages near the shop, pounds out from between two buildings, bearing the scarred Scourge at high speed for the small village's edge - behind her, the sounds of conflict continue.

Rowena can only watch with angry tears in her eyes as the scourge thunders away in a flurry of hooves. "Help, we need more help!" She screams through the night towards the watch house and then hurries back to the front of the shop, blade drawn. Skidding to a halt in the mud, she stoops to grab a crumbled bit of cobble and then creeps to the window near the door.

Who is there to see?

The town is turning out - farmers coming out with implements of their work -

But the fighting dies back. And… two of the three guards return, conscripting help to go and retrieve bodies. As white-faced as they are, the cost was certainly there.

No one is paying Rowena attention of any note. She is in the background here.

When the guards emerge from the rear, Rowena is poised to smash through the front window. Apparently there is no need. The cobble tumbles from her hand to thud lifelessly into the earth. Sheathing her blade, she dashes past the men in efforts to see for herself the damage wrought. The silverwyrm jar is no more - smashed well into the dirt. A well enough burial for so vile a creature. Keeping her eyes averted from the others and head ducked lowly, she turns the corner...

Store Front -  This small shop's walls are lined to the brim with shelves and glass cases holding reagent bottles and jars full of powders and chemicals, yet those shelves are perhaps the only surfaces of the shop which look meticulously organized.

''There is a large table in the middle of the room, made of sturdy oak and covered with sheafs of parchment, quills and inkbottles, and stacks of dusty leatherbound tomes holding bizarre and complex recipes.  From the only free wall juts a counter, behind which is one door. In the front of the room, on each side of the door, are two large windows looking out onto Sweetwater Fields.''

...and enters... oh, Light.

There is a chair in that shop, and the remnants of a man are tied to it - there's a lot of knife work, there. A lot of blood… and the knife stands firm in the man's chest; a quick ending. The people outside are dragging two leather-clad fellows and one of the guards back toward the square - there is little time to take more in, but time enough.

A young woman, dressed in the leather apron of an apothecary's assistant, is in a crumpled pile by the window, bloody and unmoving, her hand still near the sill. The room is ransacked, turned upside down, an impossible mess. Someone was searching for something...

Rowena turns her head away, butts her brow into the door frame and maintains a quaking lean there for a moment to find her composure. Her nostrils clench, exhaling sharply the coppery smell that her tongue has already begun to taste. Her lips purse tautly over grimacing teeth, eyes sending a fierce glare to the toppled table and broken shelves. "Too late," she hisses under her breath and wheels away from the frame to viscously kick a wooden mortar out of her way. The piece - still laced with the powder of its last grinding - bounces and rolls aside to join fragments beneath a shelf along the rightmost wall. Numbly, she moves forward, feet guided by their own accord over the scene to the opposite end where the battered assistant has fallen. Twas her blood that had smeared the window, then. "Miss?" She calls forth, probably in vain, voice lacking any faith. "Missus?" That lack of faith does not go unrewarded - the girl does not move.

Around her neck, at an odd angle from where she fell, is a medallion, free of clothing - the symbol of the old Church, the starburst of the True Light. It seems to have not offered much protection.

But the girl's belt pouch, too, is there - and it is open. Crumpled paper within speaks of hasty tucking away.

Gingerly, Rowena bends to a knee and reaches out to grope for the veins in the girl's throat with one hand while the other takes firm hold of the medallion and lifts it closer to her eyes for inspection. Her mouth mumbles something incoherently, head turning to cast an aimless glance around the interior. Retracting her hand from the deadened flesh, the Royal Healer resumes her snooping with far less fire than what she'd stalked across the street with earlier this night. Rolling the body over, she fingers the purse, tilting her head with grim curiosity to the parchment within. Hesitantly, she pulls it out to read, tired eyes squinting to mere slits in efforts to read while her right hand follows the medallion's chain to its clasp and struggles with it there.

Parchment - pages torn from a ledger, it seems. A large assortment of items, items that to the alchemically-minded point to... various concoctions. Not one, but more than one, noose. Flush. And worse.

It will bear some study - but seems somewhat relevant, at least. Especially with the notation of wildling poison glands among the rest.

But the girl can offer little explanation.

Frown deepening but brows arching with a degree of bemusement at seeing the wildling notations, Rowena stuffs it hurriedly into her own belt and likewise tucks the medallion away - into her corset and the convenient pocket of flesh formed therein. Looking over the rest of her body hastily, she makes a mental note of the wounds and then back-tracks across the room to perform a similar exam over the more grisly frame of whom she presumes to be the alleged and accused "Aeric." She speaks softly, standing over the man and tipping his face - or what may be left of it - back in search of recognition. There is none. Not surprisingly, all told. "You gravely overestimated the holy intentions of your deeds, now didn't you?" Stunned briefly by the coldness of her own words, Rowena releases his chin from her hand and absently wipes the blood onto her cloak. "Mayhap you will answer my questions and redeem yourself?" And the poking/nosing around begins.

It took him a long time to die - and the work is expert.

His tongue is intact, though his fingers are not, nor the bones of his hands - there were obviously questions that needed answers, and he was given ample opportunity to do that.

Beyond that, he was an older man - perhaps four decades - balding and unmarried. Very thin, and with the usual calluses, burns, and stains of his craft.

"Or perhaps it is that you did not trade with them as they had hoped?" Murmuring, Rowena is quick to drop the gelatinous hand the moment she touches it. Casting a long look towards the door, she rifles through his clothing, patting here and there in search of any more treasures for her hunt.

There is clothing, bloody and thick - but beyond a pouch largely empty (imperials are on the floor near him)... well. He's been searched thoroughly before.

Of real note, however, is the tattoo. Ink engraved in skin - a skeletal hand on his shoulder, over a moon picked out in rough red, the whole thing no larger than a coin, found when searching as best one can in the neckline of his shirt.

Oddly, the tattoo repulses Rowena more than the gore. Taking a full step away, she rises and pivots on heel to hold her head upright in her hands again. Breathe...Ponder...Command. Working on the breathing part, she gets ambitious and begins the pondering while her feet guide her aimlessly around the tussled remains of the shop. "The sun and moon, together having here forged a shop? A brew?" The word 'luminary' haunts in the depths of her mind, tongue incapable of speaking it outright quite yet. A far cry, but a hypothesis nonetheless. It would explain the scourge's rage. Flopping her hands to her hips, she takes a final look around the interior then stumbles towards the door and coughs her voice into functioning at a louder pitch. "GUARDS?"

Oh, they're coming.

The guards have gotten more, the locals repulesd at the door... but for now? For now, they move in, "Mistress - please.." And they're already chivvying Rowena for the door.

There is no sign of recognition.

Lifting both her hands to offer up the rings as means of identification, Rowena braces her feet against the floor best she can. "Let not your eyes deceive you, gentlemen, but let your ears listen closely and guide your actions to wiser pursuits." She nudges against their ushering, chin lifting high. "In the name of the Crown - for that is whom warrants me juristiction in matters such as these. The Duchess Rowena Valoria advises you strongly to send correspondance immediately to the Warpriest and the Grand Master about this incident! I also with equal vigor will 'suggest'" she says with a bit more bite to her tone, "that you alert neighboring townships - all townships - so that their guard may be prepared. As Royal Healer I /am/ instilling a decree that all shops of alchemical nature are to be watched and guarded! Closely. At least until the deeper workings behind this matter have been solved."

Leaving the guards to stare, mill about, or clean as they so desire, Rowena crosses the threshold and into the night, freed of hands. Thanking the darkness, she wipes her eyes dry on her tunic sleeve, careful so as to not worsen her complexion with blood.

"Where are you when you're needed most?" She whispers forlornly.

As alone as she’d arrived, the Duchess meanders past onlookers and heads for the Tavern. Time to pack and go. She’d done enough damage here.