[GW2] "Ill Nature"

[Xerali]

By the time Lietta exited the tavern, the day was already waning. She squinted her eyes against the thin rays of harsh orange light peeking over the tops of the tallest buildings in the Reach, cupping a hand against her brow so she could better see.

Merchants were packing away the few meager carts that lined the street, and the population was switching from the slow, waltzing day-time citygoers to worker and changeover guard making beelines for the taverns, nobles and their families making their way to Rurikton for some party or another.

For Lietta, just clearing her lungs of the tavern smoke was relief enough, and she shrugged her coat onto her shoulders, gave her inner-pocket a reassuring pat—her parcel was safe and sound.

A full week's worth of research and traveling and sleepless nights had delivered no results. In fact, the only thing she had discovered was a lack of any interested parties at all. The small ingot, apparently fished from a river in the snow-capped foothills of the Shiverpeaks, might as well have carried some disease—nobody wanted to touch it. Learn about it. Pursue it.

Lietta was not looking forward to speaking to her employer.

She ducked out of the tavern's entrance to make way for two off-duty Seraph, broad-shouldered and thirsty, shoving their way towards towards the ale. As she walked away, she regarded them coldly. Living their day, earning their keep, only with the goal of losing their wits to ale and liquor during every off-hour.

Her time was more important to her. If it could helped, Lietta didn't touch the stuff. Whiskey, ale, mind-numbing elixirs—she forbade herself from all of it.

She ducked into the nearest alley, away from the intently bustling crowds. The number of people didn't bother her; Lietta could handle crowds. She'd grown up in the Reach, after all. It was busyness of their movement, the way that most of them seemed to move about their day with no more thought than an asura golem—content to repeat the same day's events endlessly.

Not a life meant for her. She'd known that since she was thirteen, when she took everything mother and father had left for her for a life on the road.

All roads lead her, and from here, they lead anywhere.

She slipped the strange ingot from her pocket, letting the early-evening light catch its odd luster. With a cautious eye on the alley-entrance, she pulled her large dagger from its sheath on her left hip. It was a roughly shaped, yet slim weapon, and firelight danced along the edge of the blade. But not from any reflected light.

Lietta squeezed the hilt tightly and the dagger's edge flickered flames, casting a deeper light along the ingot. As she held the enchanted weapon closer, the silvery sheen gave way to something different, as if she was looking through the very surface of the metal into something beneath. Something black as pitch.

And nobody wants anything to do with it, she thought. Nobody that matters. Every two-copper smith in the Reach would want to get their hands on it, but the true masters, they won't spare a glance.

She twisted the ingot beneath the light, illuminating the strange depths of the metal.

And for all its beauty, all its mystery, its as hard as a diamond.

Numerous times, she'd let herself become lost in the metal's depths. Deep down, a part of her wanted it to maintain its mystery, to remain indecipherable. Keep those layers on tight, over whatever was forged into its dark center.

But there'll be blood to pay if I keep the damn thing, she reminded herself. An order with some renown had hired her to research it, to dig up everything she could. Damned if I'll let this—

Lietta was ripped from her sense of calm by something dropping to the ground behind her, quietly, deftly, moving before it even landed.

Her skin crawled—the sense of an attack coming—and she dropped the ingot, gripped her dagger, spun, and felt the thick cord of a garrote slip over her throat before her weapon could find her assailant. The thin rope pulled tight against her throat and she felt a rush of pressure to her head, her fingers struggling to slip beneath the silent weapon.

"Where did you get it?" a voice hissed next to her ear. "Where did you get it? Who gave it to you?"

She managed to choke a gasp of air, but it did nothing to save her—spots began to dot her vision, her head felt heavy, her thoughts from just a moment ago began slipping away...

And the garrote loosened as the attacker shoved her hard, from behind, pushing her away.

"Tell me who gave it—"

Lietta counted on his continued inquiry. While her vision was still swimming back into focus, she sucked in a great lungful of air and spun, her dagger still held tight in her grip. The sparking, enchanted blade raked across the man's coat—so it was a man—leaving him unscathed, but recoiling.

"Little bitch," the man said, more surprised than angry.

Saying nothing, Lietta pressed every advantage she had, shifting forward to slash again, keeping the man moving backwards. When he backed against the wall, she feigned another cross-cut with her dagger, but threw her weight into her other shoulder and slammed her palm into his face, a stiff-arm that knocked his head against the stone wall.

His skull thunked sickeningly against the stone wall and blood sprayed from his mess of a nose. The assailant crumpled, his knees giving out from under him.

Lietta simply watched him, her gaze steady, breathing regaining an even rhythm. A hand against her throat came away bloody—the garrote had bit deeper than she'd thought.

"Who are you?" she asked, her voice flat.

The man wiped haphazardly at the blood running over his mouth. "Don't ask. Don't make me tell you. You wouldn't care for the truth, girl." He leaned his head to the side and spit a gob of bloody saliva before continuing. "Just give me that piece of metal. Disappear."

Lietta plucked the ingot from the street, where she'd dropped it. "No."

"If I don't kill you," the man sighed, "somebody else will. Unless you disappear. And hide real good."

"No."

The man returned her stare, then, as if sizing her up. After a few quiet beats, he shrugged his shoulders, and let out a winded exhale.

"Fine. I tried. What else am I supposed to, they tell me to kill a pretty girl?"

Then man pushed forward from the wall, and every muscle in Lietta's body coiled, tense. Her assailant's eyes glowed first—fiery red, before the glow crept outward across his body, his skin burning hot.

Elementalist.

He lifted his hands toward her, fingers out, elemental fire leaping towards her before she dodge away from it.

Except, she didn't have to dodge.

Lietta's training took over unconsciously, and she let her being slip into the alley's tight shadows, away from the fire that crawled up the stone wall she'd been standing in front of. She emerged from the darkness at the man's side, her sparking dagger held tight against his throat.

"Grenth look after you, assassin," she whispered, barely audible over the crackle of flame. The man opened his mouth to speak, his lips curling into a snarl, but Lietta's dagger ended it, biting into his neck until the fire died from his eyes.

She stood, watching the corpse for a few moments. Not too far away, steel boots crashed against the stone street. Her struggle had been witnessed, after all. The Seraph were coming.

Lietta gave the strange ingot a quick glance before slipping it into a pocket.

[Xerali]

Romero Prentice took his time with almost everything. He was not an old man—merely thirty three—and the cold in the depths of the Durmond Priory did not hinder him. Once he had finally retrieved the book he sought from the upper-ring of the Priory's vast stacks of books and stored texts, he took his time reading it. A page would be examined, re-read, re-read again, before being turned. Method was important, and Romero's was consistent; fine-tuned over the years, while his wealth and his thirst for lost knowledge held him comfortably aloft.

Many found his cautious, plodding nature surprising. He was, after all, a tall man. Broader across the chest, and  few heads taller than most that he knew. Some of the shorter norn he had met were almost even with him. Strength accompanied his great frame, thick arms and taught muscles indicating a healthy body accompanying a healthy mind. In spite of the appearance of physicality about him, tough, Romero lived quietly.

When the young woman stormed into his quarters, only an hour after he had begun his morning's reading, he was understandably perturbed.

"Why, in Grenth's depths, did you send me on my way with this thing?"

As Romero looked up, startled, the girl tossed the thing in question on his desk. It bounced, in spite of its weight, onto his open book—the ingot that she'd spent the better part of last week pestering him about.

"Lietta, I—"

"Nevermind," she snapped, pacing now, back and forth across the short width of his private room. "I know that you don't have any answers. I don't have any answers. And a man just attempted to kill me for it."

Romero's mouth gaped, surprised. She stared at him, that intense stare, familiar from the moment she had met him. Unnerving, at first, but he had grown used to it. "Who? Where? How did this thing happen."

Lietta maintained her stare, nostrils flaring, the gears of her mind practically visible behind her unwavering eyes. "Divinity's Reach," she said, finally. "Just some damned tavern. He was a relic hunter, probably followed me back when I gated through from Ebonhawke."

"Are you unharmed?" The details could wait; Romero's first responsibility, as her personal handler, was her safety. Even from afar.

Lietta pulled aside the loose choker she wore. A thin, long gash stretched from one side of her neck to the other. A shallow wound, but with the potential to be quite deep.

"Ashes," he said, rising from his chair. "I had not known you would be so at risk, my friend. Perhaps it's time you put the dragon-haunted thing out of our sight."

"No."

And her stubbornness rears its head immediately, he noted. She will lose her head before she gives in...

"You've hardly failed your employer," said Romero, aiming an annoyed frown at the woman. "Whomever he is. You still haven't told me."

"No," Lietta said, again. "And I won't tell you. It's confidential."

"Confidential." Romero was hardly convinced.

"Never mind it," she said, pacing again. "It's not modern. This would be impossible. It is not aetherblade. Your crackpot partner missed that mark, too. It is not Ascalonian, at least, not by measure of any surviving metallurgist's records that I have found."

"Slow down," Romero urged. "There are many avenues we haven't pursued yet. It could be Orrian—"

"No."

"Elonan. Canthan."

"Maybe. No."

He took a deep, shaky breath. He liked the girl. Romero had to remind himself of this, from time to time, but there was a reason he had accepted her apprenticeship. Why he had taken her under his wing, so to speak.

Why I put up with the little s**t's neverending tirade of stubbornness...

"As it is, then," he continued, "what avenue would you pursue."

Lietta held up one finger as she paced, as if to silence him. "A moment," she said. "Thinking."

Let her think, then... While Romero watched her pace, he wondered about her. The strongest of her talents were quite clear to him. Acrobatic, swift, and an excellent duelist. An even better shot with a pistol or a long-rifle. If someone had truly assaulted her in Divinity's Reach...

"Did you kill him?" Romero asked.

Lietta stopped, turned, stared. She blinked, exhaled slowly. "Yes, I did. I cut his throat."

"And the Seraph didn't detain you?"

She nodded at him, a brief, firm gesture. "Of course they did. They held me for two hours. And confiscated my weapon."

Ah, he thought. There's the well of her frustration. "The dagger you recovered from..."

"Of course, that dagger. The enchantment cauterizes flesh even as it cuts. What else would I travel with?" Lietta paused, lips slightly parted, as if she were choosing a different direction to carry the conversation. "I will get it back, too. I do not care what I have to do."

"The weapon is of less importance," said Romero. "You should pursue the metal."

"A moment ago—"

"A moment ago," Romero cut her off, "I said that you should put it out of your sight, yes. You've carried it long enough. I should guess that you know its weight, shape, luster, texture as well as you know your own hand." He crossed his arms, making sure he had her full attention. "Return it to your employer, for your own safety. It needn't mean we stop our search."

Lietta only stared. "Uh huh," she said, quieter.

"An answer is out there," he continued. "We both know it. But the Priory will have an assignment for you, too."

At that, she scoffed, set her jaw. "I am not ready to believe that."

"Believe it," Romero insisted, returning to his chair. "You've been running loose ends for them long enough. Trust me, Lietta. I was there, once. Where you are. You'll gain your rank—"

"I'm leaving," she said, suddenly, snatching the ingot from his desk. "It's as you said. I should speak to the Order that hired me. Then get my dagger back."

"The dagger doesn't matter, Lietta..." But she was already gone, having given a brief wave to him before rushing out of his quarters as quickly as she had entered.

Romero tilted his chin to his chest and closed his eyes. He could not fathom reading, not with the residual energy from this woman still coursing through his mind.

Sitting still, if only for a moment, will either spell her death, or grace from the Six, he decided.