Murder most foul

[Charha]

Dying didn't come as a surprise to Ripkin. She had it coming, but she would have required a little more time. Time to figure out how she'd explain everything afterwards.

She will have to work it out somehow. Right now, however, there isn't much she can do. The alchemist lies on the floor of her shop in Skara Brae, drenched in her own blood. She knows it looks pretty bad, but there's a certain morbid charm to dying. As she gasps for that last breath of air she briefly entertains the idea of having a funeral for herself. Exquisite flowers, eloquent speeches, professional mourners, doves and black ribbons... Of course, she would have had to arrange all this beforehand.

If she would have had the time to send invitations, who would have showed up? Thoran, Laveta, Zano and Ermien, maybe. Perhaps a select few Wayfarers. Maybe a couple of people who bothered asking her for some legal advice way back. Oh, and the handsome Boern, hopefully! She doesn't have that many friends, but people might have showed up for a spectacle, who knows. If only she had managed to actually marry someone. When it comes to drama there's nothing quite like a striking widow wailing miserably by the grave site. A row of sobbing little children swearing for revenge would have been just perfect.

You can't have everything in life and death, but at least Ripkin gets to play the part of a victim for a change. If only she would have had the time to work on the setting a little bit more. Perhaps she could have sent a letter asking for help, telling a friend about this horrible feeling of being followed... Or maybe she could have left a note somewhere. But you can't plan everything down to a tee. Maybe some other time. This is good enough.

Blood is slowly pooling on the floor boards and making her fingers sticky. Here it comes. Her vision goes black. In the darkness that follows she can barely hear the sound of heavy footsteps and a door creaking shut. Then, for a good while there's nothing.

[Morgain]

After an indeterminable amount of time, there's a knock on the door. Ripkin, obviously, is no longer in any shape to hear, much less reply to the knocking, but it makes no difference; Darrine Argeledougal has been helping Rip out for such a long time that by now she just knocks out of courtesy and waltzes right in.

"Reagent delivery!", the white-haired girl announces as she wiggles the door open and steps in, carrying with both hands a basket loaded to the brim with an assortment of alchemical odds and ends. She's barely set foot inside the house when she freezes in her tracks.

She doesn't scream, although the sight makes her recoil in horror - Ripkin's lifeless body splayed on the floor, a dark pool of blood glistening under her, seeping into the cracks between the floorboards. For a moment it is as if time stood still, as Darrine struggles to take in the scene in front of her. Being a technically full-qualified healer, however, it doesn't take long for Darrine's instincts to kick in. The basket crashes to the floor, its contents scattering all over.

"Ripkin!", Darrine gasps, and in an instant she's upon the body. "No. No, no, nononono", she babbles, as she tears open Ripkin's shirt and tries against all hope to find a pulse. She might not be the most established of healers, but even during her training period she's seen enough that on some level she already knows it's all hopeless. Yet there she is, tracing the fingers of one hand along the deep gash in Ripkin's abdomen, another hand pressed on her neck, searching for the faintest signs of a heartbeat.

The check-up only confirms what Darrine could have guessed even at a glance. The sheer blood loss looks fatal in itself, and Ripkin's skin has already taken on a tell-tale pallid color. Up close, it all just becomes a lot more painfully obvious, as Darrine works through a mental checklist. Skin: pale and cold to touch, eyes: open and clouded, breathing and pulse: completely ceased. The wound is deep and jagged, the bleeding is severe and internal damage likely to be massive. Judging by the signs it all must've gone down no more than an hour ago, tops. One single deadly stab, no marks or signs of struggle apart from that - she must've never even seen it coming. The attacker has been thorough: the body is broken, the spirit is gone - in short there's nothing to be done now but to lay the body to rest.

What comes next happens in a haze. Darrine stumbles to the street, pale and hands bloodied, and informs a guard that her friend appears to have been murdered - it's obvious that the wound was inflicted on purpose. The guard follows her to the gruesome scene, takes her statement and, after the usual urgings not to leave town, ushers her out and away while a formal investigation is conducted. After finding her way to the inn, all Darrine can do for a while is sit there, in shock, barely able to believe what just happened, mind bustling with questions without answers.

[Charha]

Quite some time later, Ripkin lays on her back under ground. To be more clear, she is laying on her back in a little crawl space under her shop. At the moment she is running a little low on wine and cheese, but otherwise she's doing okay, all things considered. She has been keeping a low profile since she very nearly gave one of the local healers a stroke. The man was about to prepare her for a decent burial when she groggily woke up from of her morbid state and got up from the slab, a little stiffly - and still wearing her bloodied clothes. At the time she couldn't give the terrified man a proper explanation for what had actually happened, so she promised to give the man some gold instead in exchange of his silence. That (and an assortment of subtle threats aimed at the healer's overall well-being) seemed to do the trick. Thankfully it happened to be night time, so she managed to slink into the darkness of the streets and return to her shop unnoticed. Ever since that she has been figuring out how to deal with the situation. In time she would have to face her assailant who left her quite dead - quite dead indeed.

And what of everyone else? Telling the truth is out of the question. It's not that the explanation itself would be completely out of this world, but a direct answer would lead to a whole new array of questions and each of them would take her closer to the very things she has been avoiding ever since the time she decided to start meddling with other people's affairs in the first place. Ripkin rolls on her stomach and produces a piece of paper from a leather-bound folder she keeps next to her. She adjusts the faint light of her lantern and starts doodling another striking piece of art. She might not be the best artist around, but she likes to think her work is full of emotion!



Maybe she could confront her friends and neighbors with a story of divine intervention? Perhaps she could roll up her sleeves and claim that Esuna herself raised her from the dead as an act of mercy and goodwill towards an industrious craftsperson who had in her life so carefully concocted a gazillion greater healing potions? Your average ham-fisted, fish-eyed commoner would believe something like that at face value. Besides, her shop is already located in an Imperial city, so that would fit the bill. Hmm, a career in religion is something she has never tried before. It would be a whole new field of shenanigans altogether.

Ripkin lifts her piece of charcoal from the paper as she hears a muffled sound of a door opening. The floor boards above her creak under someone's heavy footsteps. The alchemist perks her ears. Who's this now? No one has come to her shop in a bit. The last one to snoop around was the insufferable necromancer Darrol Argeledougal - she'd recognized that wheezing cough anywhere. She had really nothing to say to him at the time, so she decided to lay low until the little creep left her shop, most likely convinced that the alchemist was gone for good and the house would eventually be put to auction...

For a moment everything is quiet. Ripkin holds her breath for a while, quiet as a mouse. As she eventually has to inhale a little, she picks up a familiar scent of pipe tobacco. Oh, it's Morvenius!

Being dead is great! Suddenly everyone remembers you! This time Ripkin fails to resist the urge of not showing up.

[Charha]

After the exchange of pleasantries with the veneered veteran of magic, Morvenius, Ripkin slinks back into hiding and to rethink her strategies. After some time has passed she runs out of paper for her drawings and becomes fairly certain of the fact that there's no reason to try to hide from the rest of the world. By now she is confident that she has everything figured out and that her expression won't crack even when her alleged friends and potential new enemies would present her with some tough questions. Besides, the Mayor of Skara Brae surely misses his quick-witted town crier, surely? There must be a stack of letters waiting to be read in the town office.

Ripkin brushes dust off her sleeves, climbs up the step ladder, emerges from the trap door, opens up the front door...

And is immediately met with a swing from a sword she only barely misses. Without pausing to think who wants her dead this time, she slams the door shut and takes a few quick steps back. In the street outside she can hear someone shouting "To arms, Keldien slags! There's one merchant still alive in this house!"

What is it this time? At this rate she will never get to effectuate her petty vengeance fetish. Down, down, down the hatch!

[Charha]

Ripkin has lied about many things, but she never lied about the fact that sometime in the past she used to follow a rag tag band of highwaymen. She had a little fling going on with the bandit leader (a total jerk, mind you), but she wasn't serious enough about it to get involved with any actual fighting. However, she still remembers quite well all the planning that went into arranging an ambush and the wait that sometimes seemed to last forever. This time it doesn't take long before she can hear the distant beating of hooves. It's the moment she has been waiting for. Darrol is as predictable as always, and Ripkin is well aware of the few spots where he goes to hunt. From the sound of it, he's not in a hurry, so there's no fear of getting trampled.

She waits for a bit longer. And a little bit.

And then:

"Surprise!" In a flurry of leaves the gypsy charlatan dashes right into the middle of the road and greets the lone rider with a terrible high-pitched scream that makes his obsidian horse rear. Before Darrol has time to react she takes a wild swing at the horse with her heavy snograz war hammer. The steed's face shatters from the force of the blow. Somehow it still remains on its feet.



"Ripkin! What are you doing? You're supposed to be dead", the startled necromancer exclaims, but the return-to-life-alchemist is too busy landing another blow on his horse's breast to explain herself. "Come on, stop it! We're in the same guild", Darrol tries to reason with her as he reaches for his Codex, his horse staggering. But it's futile; like trying to tell Ripkin she should stop selling cartloads of poison because someone might get a little ill.

"If anyone comes around we'll let them know this is just some friendly Wayfarer sparring", Ripkin laughs. Shards of obsidian crack under her heel. She darts to the left so that her next strike hits Darrol from his blind side. "Manes turbidi-" That's as far as he gets. Ripkin's heavy weapon effectively breaks his concentration.

"That's quite enough of that stuff", she hisses and grabs the stunned necromancer by the belt, yanking him off the saddle. The now faceless obsidian horse rears again, its hooves flailing. A long crack emerges on it's neck. It's going to fall to pieces at any moment. Ripkin doesn't care about the steed now that she can bring her foot down on Darrol's face and pin him on the ground. "I know you came snooping into my shop. So you probably know who put a blade in my gut? I bet you do, but for all the squirrels listening - it was that idiot Nayrover", she sneers.

"I know nothing about that", Darrol coughs and spits. "Get off me, you fiend!"

"Listen up, pipsqueak. The difference between the entire Argeledougal clan and me is that when I kill something it stays dead. And I'm going to deal with your big brother soon enough."

"I bloody mean it, Ripkin, get your boot off my face", the pale stick man complains. "I think I've got a wand of hellfire here somewhere..."

Ripkin loses a little bit of her near-infinite patience. She grabs Darrol by the collar, pulls him up from the ground and slaps him hard. The blow makes Darrol's ears ring, so he misses a part of what the crazy alchemist from Hell is telling him. "... .... .... ... ... ....ing with me, you understand? Darrine, Ermien and the rest of your stupid siblings are MY friends if that's what I want. Because of your magical misadventures you're the only one of them who knows my secret, and if I find out that you've been sharing even tiny morsels of information regarding my personal history, I'll BURN you. You and everyone you've been gossping with."

"Uh..." Darrol rubs his aching cheek. He's starting to look a little concerned. Who knew Ripkin was so strong. He always thought that Ripkin and the rest of her sort are made of some flimsy fairy magic rather than muscle.

"Looks like someone finally put the lights on", Ripkin compliments him. "Now, you may want to consider this. Either your pals are friends with me or they're as good as gone. If we can't all play nice, I'm going to make everyone a little teary-eyed. These days I've got so much capital I've just started throwing it away, so if it comes to sorting you guys out I don't even have to get my own hands dirty... Unless I want to make it special."

She releases her grip, gives Darrol a brief smile and brushes some dust off his dark robe. "Look at you, you've gotten yourself all dirty. What a dirty little man you are."

Darrol's expression turns glum. He's not sure whether he's more disgusted at the smug human mask Rip's wearing or the murky memory of what lies behind it. For the umpteenth time Darrol feels that common wizards could learn a little something from necromancers when it comes to keeping their minions in a leash. "I'm sick of being pushed around like this even though I haven't gotten on your way before", he grumbles. "I thought we had an understanding of sorts."

"I'm not so sure of that anymore, Darrol. So you should be really careful from now on", Ripkin says with a thin smile. "Anyway, it was really nice seeing you. I was actually going to do some bird-watching, but this was a pleasant side track", she chirps in her usual light tone. "See you around, okay? You should pay me a visit in Skara more often, you know."

She flings her war hammer on her shoulder and disappears into the woods, leaving Darrol standing next to a sad pile of obsidian limbs.

"You owe me a new horse", Darrol shouts after her, but there's no reply.