Little Miss Queen of Darkness

The Yawning Portal saw the usual clientele of Waterdeep souls tonight as Koshka performed. Her eyes were closed, and the tall sitar was held in her hands, braced against one upright knee, folds of her skirts spread out upon the tiny corner stage. Occasionally she'd crack one dark yellow eye to observe the crowd, watching as she sang softly. 

It was an uninspiring night, and apart from a blonde-haired old Dwarf nursing his third huge tankard of sour smelling ale who actually seemed quite absorbed in the performance, there were few eyes upon the Tiefling as she played. A yawning human couple sat closely, more invested in each others eyes, three halflings sat around a table trading bawdy stories and occasionally laughing loudly. Koshka saw Durnan behind the bar, looking around the room with his eagle old eyes as always. 

It was a quiet song, low tempo, of slowly spiraling sitar strums that echoed about the room, a voice low, sad.

Naked Ruby cries
A painted alibi
She fell onto her knife
Naked Ruby cries 
All night

The blonde dwarf raised his tankard and drunkenly nodded his head slowly, as if in agreement with the lyrics. One of the halflings finished what must have been the punchline to her story and screeched with high pitched laughter. 

At the waters edge
Ruby grips the bed
She knows she's going to die
If she can't swim to the other side
Naked Ruby cries
All night

Another guffaw of laughter split the quiet song, and two brawny stevedores began exchanging noisy words concerning the proper way to tie a bowline knot. Koshka opened her eyes and found Durnan looking at her, giving her a spread of his great calloused hands and giving her the unmistakable hand gesture of 'give me something here'.

Koshka allowed the rest of her song to go unsung, trailing off the last strings of her sitar quietly. The quiet in the tavern went unnoticed, and no faces turned up to see what had happened to the music, other than one dwarf who still looked on expectantly. 

Koshka leaned to glance into the brown purse placed down in front of the stage, to see a scant handful of coppers had filled it since she began, and rolled her eyes. Nothing else for it then. 

Koshka turned to the lad who ran drums for the other bards, knowing he knew how to keep a beat when required. 

"Boy, get behind your drums here. We're gonna have a sing along," she said. The boy got up from his place and clambered behind the two large drums that sat behind Koshka. 

With a flowery wave of her skirts, Koshka stood, swinging her sitar around to balance over her shoulders. 

"Bit quiet in here tonight isn't it?!" she called out. A few faces turned towards her, a few eyebrows raised, "You all come from a funeral?"

A one-eyed old soldier in the far corner gave a snort of derision and called back, "Aye, yers if ya keep playin' that bloody dirge, half-blood."

There was a roar of laughter, Koshka cocked her hip and extended a pointed fingernail in his direction. 

"Oh we're all having a go now are we?" she asked, "Think you lads could do me better?"

There were a few shouts, mumbled retorts, at least one brief attempt to supply another cutting remark that fell short.

Koshka placed her sitar down, resting against the wall, and bending down, neatly undid the ties on her boots. 

Barefoot, the Tiefling hopped neatly onto the nearest table, causing the incumbent half-orc to snatch up his wobbling cup, and raised her hands up.

"Who knows 'Upon Returning from Icewind Dale?!'"

There was a great cheer from the assembled room. Koshka met them with smile, baring her fangs, and in a loud, melodic voice, she began.

We all set sail for Icewind Dale
The place where good ale flows
Where the maidens are fair
In the chill summer air
And they sing songs that everyone knows

Reaching behind her, Koshka gave a tug of the lace that held her bodice tight, and opened the back of it with a jerk of her shoulders.

But Gods help you if you are a human
'Cause you better learn to drink quick!
For those damn Dwarven lasses
They drink their ale in flashes
And they'll drink it all before you take a sip!

Koshka tossed her bodice in the air as the boy began a rolling sea shanty beat, and with a drunken roar, a dozen of the occupants of the bar joined in for the chorus, tankards banging on tables and suds spilling.

We've been kicked out of every pub in Icewind Dale
We've been beaten within inches of our lives
For we act like asses to those fair Elven lasses
It's a wonder any one of us survived!

Koshka leapt to the next table in the line, her bare feet landing between the laughing Halflings, unlinking her outer skirt with a whip of her hand and depositing the garment atop the head of one of the little folk. He emerged from beneath it with a laugh of support and reached up at Koshka's leg as she danced out of reach to the next table.

Well it was there I was drinking one fine mornin'
Flirting with some pretty goblin fun
When behind me there loomed such a shadow
That I fled out from my seat for to run!
Well I swear it was a mountain of muscle
That kicked my arse and threw me out the door
But 4 foot 7 was her height
And her anger gave her might
And she looked big when you're lying on the floor!

Her white shirt next to fall behind her as she skipped to another table, Koshka found the air around her seemed to glow, lights that were following her, dancing as if in time to her swinging hips, her rolling shoulders. Flicks of glowing lights flashed and glimmered around her fingertips as she deftly unlatched the buckles on her heavy second skirt and sent it falling about the heads of the singing folk at her feet. 

With only her meagre silk undergarments remaining, Koshka raised her voice, and the lights beamed with more energy still. 

Like whiskey and bitters are to moth and to flame
A more volatile mixture can't be found
For when you go a-travelling
If that bodice you're unravelling
Belongs to a Tiefling be prepared!

Her bare red flesh gleaming in the light from the hearth, Koshka leapt back upon the stage as the chorus continued to be belted out by an entire room of roaring drunks. The lights that followed Koshka were throbbing, seeming to feed off her energy, her confidence, punctuating her performance with every movement.

Her fingers twirled at her hips, Koshka deftly began unlacing the tiny silk knots that kept her remaining garments on. With a roll of her hip, about to whip the entirety of it from her body, she heard Durnan yell across the bar at her.

"For Tyr's sake Kosh, keep sumthin' on at least!" the bartender growled. There was a general groan of disappointment from the audience. 

"There goes yer bloody tip barkeep!" cried the blonde dwarf, sat staring up at Koshka by the stage, resulting in a resounding cackle of laughter. Koshka made a show of retying the knot and spread her hands wide in a great shrug of apology, her face lit with a playful smile.

When the last repetition of the rousing chorus finally died down, Koshka stood with hands on her bare hips, looking about the crowd. With a little kick of her bare foot, she kicked the purse clinking down onto a table in the middle of the room.

"Right... any requests?" 

The bar exploded into noise immediately, calls for 'Down among the Dead Men', 'Bound for south Serpentes', 'Calimshan Girls' echoing all over. When the old Dwarf quietly suggested 'Kisses in Skullport', one of Koshka's own ballads, she leaned over him to tussle his hair and make the old man blush. A good few drinks worth of silver and even a few glinting gold coins clinked heavily into the purse as more songs were suggested. Koshka gave a wink to Durnan as he slowly shook his head, returning to cleaning his glasses and wishing he'd stuck with the quiet raga. 

The strange lights continued their effervescent illumination around Koshka's deep red skin, swelling with her mood and her smiles. Later, drunks would trade stories all down the dockside about the evening, with the intensity of the strange magic display, and indeed, the state of nudity of the Tiefling performer growing ever more exaggerated with each telling.

-

Durnan was wiping down the bartop with a rag as Koshka sat nursing a drink at the far end of the long wooden bar. The last dregs of the occupancy were either helping each other leave, or snoring in corners waiting to be prodded by Durnan's broom. Not long before the first light of dawn would shine over Waterdeep. 

"Why so glum looking, Kosh?" Durnan asked. The Tiefling, lost in her thoughts, took a moment to respond. 

"Not been a great week for... I guess anything." she replied quietly, her voice hoarse from a night of loud and ever-rowdier shanties. Her clothes were in a pile on a stool beside her. 

Durnan reached over to give the purse that sat beside her a prod.

"You made 13 gold in one night, girl, usually you'd be bouncing off the  walls," he said. Koshka gave a shrug, staring into her drink. The old warrior gave a sigh, and leaned in closer to her.

"Look girl, I known you since you were knee-high to a grasshopper. I know when you're upset. If it's something I can help with, let me know. Yeah?"

Koshka put down her drink, chewing her lip. 

"I know... It's just... I gotta see Treave is all, he said he'd meet me here. Things'll be fine once he gets here."

"Well, you know what's best, I'm sure," Durnan grunted, and Koshka saw his chin rise as he looked over her shoulder, "We're closed lads, open up again for libations late morning."

"Oh this won't take up much of your time, barkeep," came the gruff brogue from behind Koshka. She felt a chill down her spine, and slowly turned. 

Behind her was a particularly broad Dwarf, an axe on his hip, flanked by two men in leathers. 

"Koshka is it?" said Tormyr, "I need a word with you."

-

'Naked Ruby' lyrics by Katiejane Garside.

Part 4

Behind Blue Eyes

Koshka approached the little wooden door and stood quietly for a moment. The cobblestones beneath her boots were wet, and the Tiefling glanced to either side down the dark alley. Echoes from the docks could be heard dimly over the crowding buildings. Clutched against her bustier was the pouch of coin. 

Her dress was heavy with the rainfall, and water glistened on her curved horns as she took a breath to steady herself, before she knocked firmly three times on the door.

There was a moment of silence before the little window slid open with a crack that made Koshka jump, and from it gazed the large black eyes of the Half-Orc bodyguard. He was having to learn awkwardly to see through the small window, and frowned down at Koshka. 

"I'm here to see Mr Darrow," she said, hesitantly. 

The Half-Orc gave a snort, and the window slammed shut. Koshka shifted uncomfortably. Pulling at her dress and tugging her shirt from it's uncomfortable wet hold around her neck. 

Finally the door swung open, and the guard stood aside to allow her in. He was huge, and Koshka felt his gaze on her back as she stepped down the little hallway towards the office. The hallway was long and tight, and should someone stand at either end with a crossbow, Koshka was painfully aware there was nowhere to go. 

Her boots echoed noisily down the hall, and it seemed a long time until the Tiefling finally turned the corner to enter the office. It was small, the ceiling seeming to encroach on headspace, and Koshka held her hands clutched in front of herself as she waited to be addressed. 

Darrow was seated behind his desk as always. Papers and coins cluttered around. Multiple heavy scrolls were lined up in a row near him, and he appeared to be in mid-transcription when his gaze finally crawled up Koshka's body to look at her. Every time when Koshka thought she was prepared, that she was used to it, she'd look into those eyes, deep and big and blue, staring out from that awful face, and immediately feel her stomach turn.

Koshka automatically turned her eyes from his gaze, and tried to look elsewhere. Her gaze found the little statues on the corner of his desk, and the awful feeling of tension in her gut started again. Glancing at the scrolls, she didn't want to be accused of snooping, so instead she settled on looking around her at the items on the walls instead. The pictures, the paintings, the many collected items that had found their way to Darrow's office. 

"Koshka," Darrow said, his accent extending the first syllable into an unpleasant hiss, "You're wet."

Koshka tugged at her skirt uncomfortably. 

"Yes...It's raining," she said. 

Darrow's face, his true face, was as unreadable as ever, and Koshka tried again not to stare at it as the human extended a hand to gesture at her.

"You're treading water on my carpet, girl." 

Koshka stepped back onto the bare stone quickly, tutting.

"Sorry, sorry I didn't mean to..." 

"Towards me, girl, where I can see you," Darrow said. 

Koshka took a breath to steady herself, and stepped around the red carpet to stand before Darrow's desk. 

"Do you have something for me?" he said. 

Koshka suddenly remembered why she was there, and fumbled the little coin purse from her bustier. Almost dropping it, she extended it to place on the desk before her. 

Darrow's hand shot out, fast and deft as any thief. Snatching Koshka's extended hand and gripping it tight around the purse. Darrow's nails were neat and trimmed, the cuticles of his fingers red and sore looking.  

He waited in silence until Koshka raised her gaze to look into his eyes. 

Those blue eyes. It was so hard to look into them. Koshka's breath was shallow. 

Darrow was a more horrifying sight than any bodyguard he could possible employ. 

Darrow's skin, where it was visible, was a pale and pasty white. Years without sun had made his flesh like parchment, the skin around his eyes dark and sagging. Every inch of visible flesh upon the man, and Koshka could only assume, upon all the rest of his flesh currently covered by a plain and simple black shirt and breeches, was tattooed in excruciating detail of a demonic horror. As if superimposed over his own body, the demon seemed to regard Koshka as Darrow looked at her. Around his thin lips were leering, grinning fangs, tongue lolling black down his chin. Horns so elegantly designed they seemed almost to bulge from his forehead. All the way to his hands, where individual bony claws stood upon every finger, each knuckle meticulously covered. When buttons on Darrow's shirt had been loose, Koshka had seen glimpses of of bony ribcages, black against his pale flesh. 

"Little small, isn't it?" Darrow hissed, dragging Koshka from her horror, "You owe me 60 gold, Koshka."

Koshka stumbled over her words for a moment, before she found her confidence. 

"It's 25 gold, I...I had trouble this week. Things didn't go as planned."

"Yes well things rarely do if you plan poorly, don't you find?" Darrow said, without an ounce of humour. He continued to hold Koshka's hand in a surprisingly firm grip, "I find to take care of things I often have to do things myself, so that I don't have anyone else to blame. Tell me Koshka who do you have to blame, hm?" 

Koshka hesitated, "No one."

"No one? So you are squarely to blame for failing to provide what you owe? 60 gold by this week Koshka, my spells don't come cheap, you know that."

She nodded firmly.

"Yes, yes I know. I'm sorry, I'll have the rest by next time, no question."

"I have your word, girl?" Darrow said, his blue eyes narrowing. Koshka had the sensation of being crushed, her ribs tightening, her breath short. For one awful moment, as she stared at his face, she had the sudden impression of one curving tattooed bone twitching, ever so slightly.

"You have my word, you'll be paid in full."

"Trust is all we have in this business, Koshka. I don't have to warn you what happens when someone fails to honor an agreement with me, do I?" 

Koshka's gaze fell to the little statues upon the desk. Each one so real looking, so detailed. Almost impossibly so, like they'd start moving any moment. One, a dwarf, looked like he was in the process of beginning to swing a weapon, beard flailing, the tiny face twisted in rage. The newest one there was a woman, dark skinned, naked, long curling braids about her shoulders, an expression of shock on her face and one hand raised as if to defend herself. Koshka recognized the woman from the Yawning Portal, a known thief. 

"Yes, I know," she said. Darrow allowed her hand free, with a deft turn of his fingers, he slipped the purse loose and, without looking into it, placed it into a drawer behind his desk. 

"You have until three moons from now, or I'm making space on my desk." 

Koshka gave a nod, and was about to turn to leave when Darrow's head tilted to one side, clearly listening. His face twisted, briefly, into a scowl, before his usual unconcerned demeanor returned. 

"He doesn't have it?" Darrow suddenly snapped, responding to a conversation only he could hear.

Darrow spread his hands flat on the table, his face suddenly a mask of concern, "Hold him there until...No, send him back here, both of them. Now." 

Koshka made to leave, but Darrow's voice snapped sharply, he was pointing to the corner of the office room.

"You. Stand there. Face the wall. Silence. Understand?" 

Koshka hesitated, and Darrow raised his voice a small but noticeable amount. 

"Now."

Koshka stepped to the corner, staring in confusion at a coatrack as she head hurried footsteps coming down the little hallway. She heard Darrow whisper under his breath. 

An odd feeling came over her, a strange, cooling sensation her entire body over. In shock, she realized she couldn't see her own eyelids when she blinked. She had become invisible. 

Koshka stood, silent and invisible, in the corner of the office, as two figures entered the tiny room with a commotion.

"Darrow, Darrow mate I'm so sorry I don't know how it happened but there was a problem with the trade off, they're all gone," came the gruff and panicked voice from the newcomer. From the height the voice came from behind her, Koshka could tell it was a Dwarf. 

"You lost the satchel," Darrow said, his voice like ice. 

The Dwarf stuttered, and another voice began. Koshka's breath burned in her throat, and her eyes widened in shock and recognition. 

"There was a miscommunication, at the tradeoff, Mr Darrow, sir." the voice said. The same voice Koshka had heard whispering sweet things into her ear a night before, "I think, I think someone knew about the meet."

"And you, a professional courier, gave my package to the wrong person." Darrow asked.

There was a huff of breath, and Koshka could picture Finn's trademark shrug and careless rolled eyes.

"Professional hazard, always. I'm sure it can be found, after all, I remember everything I..."

Darrow cut him off by slamming his open palm on the desk with a slam that made everyone in the room jump.

"You allowed yourself to be tricked. To be fooled. To be taken for an idiot. To have MY PROPERTY STOLEN FROM YOU," Darrow's voice boomed, raised to an echoing yell. 

There was silence for a moment, held breaths. 

"I do so love having someone to blame, don't you?" Darrow said, coldly. 

"Mr Darrow, surely we can..." the Dwarf began. Koshka's eyes hurt suddenly, and sickly green light filled the room. There was a moment of horrible screaming, and then nothing. Koshka stared into the corner in terror, waiting.

"You'll find my satchel by the end of the week, is that clear, Tormyr?" 

"Yes Mr Darrow, yes sir, you have my word, all the best on it already." 

"Go." 

There was movement, the shuffle of a single pair of feet down the hallway. Silence.

Koshka felt herself return to normal, the feeling of chill replaced by the sudden awareness of being visible again, and the unexpected feeling of vulnerability it caused. 

Darrow was seated behind his desk, hands spread. There was no one else in the room. 

"Three moons, girl. Clear?"

"Yes...Mr Darrow... sir," Koshka whispered, breathlessly.

Darrow gestured at the door, and Koshka left. 

Heart hammering in her chest, Koshka strode down the hallway and stood before the bodyguard. The Half-Orc placed a finger to his lips briefly,  The last echoing footsteps were echoing down the alleyway, and when they fully disappeared into the night, he slowly slid finger from his lips, and opened the door for Koshka to leave.

-

Rain hammered down on Koshka as she walked through the streets, heels clicking on the cobblestones. 

An awful weight hung in her throat. She'd made a terrible mistake. The only person who had seen her face was gone, but she knew, somehow, somewhere they'd be onto her, seeking her out. 

Koshka looked down the rainy streets towards home, and instead turned in the opposite direction. Treave, she had to go to Treave. He'd know what to do.

-

Darrow sat in his office, his hands spread and gripped to the table in front of him. His breath was heavy, heaving in his chest, and he thrust out a hand to fumble with his drawers. 

There was a roaring in his head. A hunger. A hunger that had to be sated before something terrible happened. 

As he reached out, the claws of his tattoo rippled, for just a moment. The awful bone-white claws tatooed onto the backs of his fingers leapt fully from his flesh to scratch lines into the wooden desk. Darrow turned aside, trying desperately to contain it, but he was running low. 

His store exhausted, he tugged one of the rings from his own fingers. Powerful magic, but no other option now. Holding it in his hand, he tried to concentrate, to quell the roaring deep behind his eyes. The creature staring out of his skull hissed a threat into Darrow's brain. 

He concentrated, the magic ring quivered, and burned away to nothing in the palm of his hand. Magic surged through him, calming, quieting, sating.

Darrow leaned back in his chair, sighing in relief. It was quiet for now. 

Darrow slammed shut the drawer and hissed. He was running out of wondrous items. Soon there would be nothing let for him to devour. 

-

Part 3

Livin' on a Thin Line

Findan sat up to rest on his elbows and watched the Tiefling as she reclaimed her clothing from around the floor. She turned yellow eyes towards him, and he got that thrill again. Dark eyes full of laughter and promises. He still couldn't believe his luck. Years of courier work and never had a job ended like this. 

She stood up, her dark red skin almost the colour of blood in the dim light, her body hidden only by a barely-there chemise.

"Well it's been a pleasure doing business with you, sir, I do hope we can arrange it again sometime," she said. Her voice was husky, with a lyrical accent Findan wasn't familiar with. He spread his hands wide and grinned.

"You got that right, where can I find you when I'm back in town?" 

"Oh, I'll find you first," she purred, slipping back on a deep blue shirt and buckling the front around her stomach. Findan's satchel lay on the floor nearby, bulky and heavy. He had been sick of carrying and watching the thing all the way from Icewind Dale. 

When the Tiefling was fully dressed, standing tall in low-heeled riding boots, a frilled skirt and a small jacket, she knelt to take up the satchel and slung it over her shoulder.  

"Until next time..." she whispered, and blew the courier a kiss, Findan watched her go, and decided to get a few more hours sleep. 

-

Tormyr was gnawing on the second hunk of dried meat he'd purchased from the nearby stall when Findan finally appeared, trotting down the watery street with a spring in his step. The Dwarf gave a grunt of acknowledgement as the courier approached and flashed a smile.

"I said noon. Not noonish, Finn," Tormyr grunted, waving the meat at him. Findan gave a nod and fluttered a hand in apology.

"Oh come on, I'm barely late. Sometimes in life you have to take the time to relax, Tor. Don't you ever take a day off?" 

"Not really, s'matter of fact. Why y' so perky?" Tormyr asked, his eyes narrowing under his great bushy salt and pepper eyebrows. Findan gave a laugh.

"It was a good night, sometimes all it takes is a change in luck to brighten up the whole world, you know?"

"Apparently so. Coulda' fooled me though, looks like another shit morning in Waterdeep f'rall I see though. The meet go well then?" the Dwarf asked.

"I tell you, If you'd told me what the contact was like before I would have taken this job weeks ago," Findan gave a whistle. Tormyr stared at him curiously.

"Oh aye? The Tiefling yeah? Scary looking bugger isn't he?"

Findan hesitated, looked down at the dwarf, hands on his hips, and gave an incredulous half-laugh.

"He?" 

"The Tiefling. Your contact. Koziel. Big bugger with horns out to here," the dwarf gestured, extending his arms either side of his head, "What do you mean?"

Findan was silent a moment, and he looked out down the wet streets, chewing on his lip. Tormyr's moustache gave a concerned wiggle, and he prodded the courier. 

"Why...who'd you give the package to, Finn?"

"Erm... I think there might have been... a misunderstanding somewhere. I met a Tiefling at the dock... she said she was the one I was looking for."

"She? Well did you ask for the password? The one the contact was to give you?" Tormyr thundered, his gruff voice echoing off the cobblestones.

Findan scratched at his head sheepishly, the colour having suddenly drained from his face. 

"I... I fear it slipped my mind," Findan said, all trace of levity gone. Tormyr stared up at him, moustaches quivering in rage.

"Who'd you give the package to Finn?!"

-

Treave looked up at the polite knock on his door, and cautiously called out. 

"Yes, yes?" 

"It's me," came the voice from beyond. Quiet, distinctive. 

Treave's face lit up and he tucked his paintbrush behind his ear and scampered across the room to unlock the door.

"Koshka! Koshka my dear come in, quick quick!" he stood aside to make room as the Tiefling crouched to fit through his miniature studio door. The red-skinned woman gave the tiny Gnome a hug that almost covered his figure entirely in her frilly shirts and great skirts. Treave gave a quick glance out the door before he closed it behind her. Koshka slumped a clattering satchel on the ground. 

"Is this it? Is this it? Well done girl! How on Earth did you get it from him?" Treave said as he cleared aside his easel and paints, eagerly tugging at the drawstrings of the satchel. 

Koshka gave a low shrug and smiled.

"People'll believe anything if you give them enough reason to."

"Clearly, clearly so!" Treave chuckled. The contents of the satchel displayed, he tugged an elegant loupe from his shirt pocket and placed it to his eye. 

"Well...what have we got?" Koshka asked hesitantly; watching the Gnome work. 

Taking items from the satchel one by one and carefully examining them, Treave nodded slowly.

"Hm, it's definitely magical cargo alright, looks like a wonderous item horde. Let's see now..."

Koshka clutched her hands together in anticipation and bit her lip with a sharp fang. Treave proceeded to meticulously examine the contents of the satchel item by item, sniffing stoppered bottles, tapping on something here, listening intently to something there.

"Wig of many styles... Self inking quill... oh!" he lifted a thumb-sized dull metal object, "Unpierceable thimble of defense!"

Koshka's face started to fall, as Treave continued to sort.

"Goblet of goblins... Evergrowing cheese... Abacus of counting..." 

"Is it all... trash?" Koshka ventured. Treave gave a shrug.

"Depends on your view of trash I suppose, there's always a market for novelty magic items you know. This Bag of endless beetroot? Might get a few silver for that at the market." 

Koshka slumped back, dejected.

"Where's the good stuff? The Potions of longevity? The Rings of wishes? Girdles of giant strength?"

 Treave looked up at her and gave the Tiefling a comforting smile. 

"There there my dear. They can't all be dragon's hordes. But, don't be too down," he was sniffing at a tiny metal flask, pearlescent liquid sloshing within, "Because I happen to know that a certain masked Lord will pay at least 30 gold for this one." 

He tossed the tiny item to Koshka, who cradled it in her hands. 

"What is it?" she asked reverently. Treave gave a wink.

"Potion of hair regrowth. He's been trying to employ a wizard capable of giving him back his curls for years now."

Koshka shook her head and sighed.

"Thankyou Treave. I'll leave the rest with you?" 

Treave gave a nod, shoving the bulging satchel aside. 

"Of course, of course! Anything I find a home for, I'll be sure to kick you back your percentage." 

She leaned to give the gnome a small kiss on his prodigious protruding nose, and made to leave.

"Oh, if you still want to earn a little more, you know you can always come model for me, dear!" Treave called after her. 

"You haven't got the gold, Treave!" she called back playfully. 

-

Koshka stood in the rain outside the tiny door, clutching the potion to her breast. 30 gold would be enough to tide over the debt for now. 

Taking a quick glance either way down the street, she sped off towards the dock, heels clicking on the hard cobblestones.

-

Treave listened as the footsteps trailed off out of earshot, and once more made sure his door was locked.

Digging into the bottom of the satchel, he pulled out the metal bracers from the bottom. Etched in filigree and gleaming silver. They seemed heavier than they should be. Treave kicked the rest of the satchel and its contents aside, and placed the bracers carefully upon his work desk. 

"Now then, let's see why they wanted you so badly..."

-

Part 2

Tales from Solemn Vale: The Legend of the Ryswell Strait.

The forests of Solemn Vale are home to many rivers and streams that babble along through the trees. Some are wide enough to be crossed by small bridges, others just large enough for a traveler to leap from bank to bank.

One unassuming length of river, a few miles into the forest, bears a history of death. The Ryswell Straight, as this quarter mile of rugged river is known, runs between mossy banks and looks to any passerby like any other quiet woodland creek. The little river is deceptively deep though, and startlingly fast.

Following the Ryswell Straight will lead to a flat rock, slipping out from the forest floor over the river. The rock is treacherous, slippery even when dry. And it was from this rock, in the winter of 1576, that a girl named Bethany Ryswell was cast naked into the freezing river by the town priest. 

Accused of witchcraft after a neighbour’s hen began laying black-yoked eggs, Bethany was swiftly apprehended by the local clergy, and the priest declared a test of faith. Promising Bethany would be cleared of all accusations should she swim the river and climb the other side, the girl was thrown in. 

Only a dozen feet across, the river’s current held the girl down against the rocky riverbed, and Bethany never again rose from the water. The Priest cursed her name as a witch, it let it be known that holy justice had been served. 

Ryswell straight began to be visited by missionaries over the decades following, becoming something of a holy site. They noticed strange things about the waters moving through the area. As if disobeying the laws of nature itself, the waters of the Ryswell straight coarse faster when touched, streaming past errant fingertips or dangled toes as if clutching for them. The waters turn in onto themselves in places, spinning the current in strange and unpredictable ways. Holy men at the site say it was the power of God in the waters. 

This narrative was kept up a while, until a visiting Bishop blessing the river stepped on a particular out-jutting rock and slipped into the straight. The waters gripped the man like claws, tugging him under without time to scream. It was hours before they pulled the Bishops body from the waters downstream of the Ryswell straight, bloodied and torn upon the rocks. 

In the strange way of things, more people began to visit the Ryswell Straight following the bishop’s grisly death. Each seeking a test of faith, to prove their holiness by leaping into the waters and successfully swimming to the other side. It seems none were as holy as they believed. Since 1576, no-one who has stepped into the Ryswell Straight has made it to the other side. Every single pious soul, adventuring daredevil or unfortunate walker who just happened to slip, has died in the short straight of river. Either held under by the twisting waters, or smashed upon the rocks. Some believe God is a harsh judge, and others say that the ghost of Bethany Ryswell still lies seeking warmth from the river bed.

At the Ryswell Straight today, little marks the place but for a poorly constructed wire fence around a few areas of the river, and a sign that warns ‘DANGER. Beware slippery Rocks. No Swimming’.

In the Mountains, The Dreams (A Cerce Stormbringer Story) Part 2.

 Part 1

-

Chapter 2

"Bloody hell..." crooned Cerce as they crested the rocky rise and the scope of the monastery came into view through the trees.

It was a building devoid of light, even among the dim moonlit forest it was a hulking black shape deeper than shadow. It sat hunched on the hillside like a gargoyle, with creeping towers reaching out into the forest. There were no fires burning, no signs of habitation, only darkness.

"Now that is not a welcoming place," Adam said as he came up to stand beside Cerce. "Proper good spot to get murdered right up, that is."

"You're not wrong. What do you think they're worshiping up in there?"

Adam put his hands on his hips, fingers toying with the hilt of his rapier.

"You're asking me? I don't know, love. Could be one of them monks suddenly figures he's a prophet? That's not uncommon. Or they dug up a book, standard Old God stuff, miserable forgotten type who likes child sacrifices and dreariness?"

"Yeah, if we're lucky. If that's the case all we got in there is a bunch of zealots to knock about," Cerce frowned.

"You worried it's something else?"

"Well the other option in these sort of times is that these fuckers found something horrible in the dark and decided it was a God," Cerce said as she peered through the mist towards the monastery. 

"Hm. Doesn't sound promising."

Adam tugged on his belt, testing the smooth draw of his rapier from its clasp. Satisfied, he nodded towards the shape that seemed to crouch upon the hill before them.

"Shall we?" he asked.

"Nothing to be done," Cerce nodded.

Together, they began the climb.  

-

The stones of the monastery walls were crumbling. Ivy crawled among the cracks, brittle and dying from the chill in the air. 

Cerce placed her hand upon a column as the travelers stepped from the barely-there path and into a flat dirt courtyard. 

She retracted her hand with a sudden hiss, and Adam looked over to her.

"Something sharp?" he asked.

Cerce looked at her fingers.

"No...no it's cold. It's like ice."

Adam put a hand to his brow and looked up at the looming monolith of a building before them. Cold, empty, silent. Blackness yawned from every empty stone window.

"I don't see fires. Looks like a tomb. If they aren't keeping warm somehow in there, it's going to be one."

"I don't like this one bit, Adam," Cerce said. She was peering up into the darkness of a window far above. Something was drawing the eye there, but nothing stared back from the empty black stone hole. 

Cerce narrowed her eyes. 

"Well, sooner in, sooner out, eh?" Adam said. He pulled his cloak tighter about his shoulder and gave a shiver. "And the stone has to cut a bit of the wind out at least." 

Cerce looked about the courtyard, her blue eyes peering across the old stone, the dirt, the green ivy eating up through the cold walls. 

A spot they crossed bore the marks of something long there only recently moved, plants growing in perfect lines, and Cerce noticed scratch marks upon the stone, as if something of great weight had been dragged off, towards the doors.

"Yeah," Cerce said absently, and followed the scratches to the giant set of wooden doors that stood to the front and center of the monolith building, the only portal not black and staring. 

The doors were ten feet tall, with holes where Cerce assumed a handle would once have been. She put her fingers through one and gave a tug. The doors could have been made of solid stone as much as they moved.

Cerce dropped to a squat and put her eye to the hole. 

"Woah, woah, don't... don't do that!" Adam waved. 

Nothing but a void peered back as Cerce stared through the little hole. 

"Nothing back there," she murmured. 

"No I mean that's how you get a big hook or rusty spike or something jammed through your eye up into your..." Adam's fingers made jabbing motions towards his face, accented with a hook of the finger and a tug, "Gak!"  

Cerce stood up, frowning. 

"Well, warn me before I do it next time. If I get gakked you're the one who's got to walk home all by  themselves."  

"Aren't you glad you brought me along?" he said, giving the bottom of the door an experimental kick. Cerce watched his lips turn down in sudden pain.

"Didn't work? Why not give it another try? Definitely getting somewhere," Cerce chuckled. Adam flapped a corner of cloak at her.

"Oh shut up and help me, here," Adam said, putting his shoulder to the door and half crouching, jamming his foot against a rise in the stone floor and shoving. Cerce fell in beside him, her arms up and pushing, and with a great creak that split the silent air of the courtyard, the right door gave an inch inward, a sliver of black nothing showing between the doors. 

Grunting, Adam strained against the door again, before Cerce elbowed him aside.

"Just needs a little encouragement, is all." 

Taking her halberd, Cerce jammed it between the gap in the doors and gave it a twist. With a great pull, the door was forced open another few inches, enough for Cerce to get a little more leverage, and with a second tug, the door crunched against the stone ground enough to admit them.

Adam took a bow and gestured politely.

"After you." 

"Oh, charming," Cerce grumbled as she slid sideways through the opening and into the darkness beyond. 

Adam stood for a moment, looking out over the quiet courtyard, before he held his hat to his head and followed.

The moment Adam crossed the threshold, he was so aware of the silence it was startling. Adam's hands rose to his ears almost automatically to brush the lobe of his ear, testing if his hearing was still with him. He blinked, and blinked again, unable to tell whether his eyes were open or closed. 

"Cerce," Adam said, an edge of panic to his voice the Nadyr immediately recognized.

"It's okay," she responded. Her voice coming back to him from a few steps up ahead. Her words were flat, no echo bouncing back through the blackness.

"Stand still a moment, you'll be able to see," she said. 

Adam looked around himself, seeing nothing. The world was empty for a moment, and the horrible sensation of staring down into nothing made his stomach lurch with vertigo. Through the blackness there came movement, and Adam's hand jerked for the hilt of his rapier as Cerce's hand reached out to grab him. 

Her fingers closed around his wrist.

Cerrce pulled him closer, his body coming up against hers. Automatically, Adam put his arms around Cerce's waist, and they stood close to one another. 

An inch or so taller than he was, Cerce's mouth was near Adam's ear, and he could hear her shivering exhales. 

The cold in there was indescribable, an awful chill that seemed to suck air from the lungs with every breath. The cold crept up through their boots as if they stood barefoot upon the dark stone beneath them, and nothing but the black masonry was visible as the sepulchral interior of the monastery slowly gained shape. 

There was a sound that came to the ears, low at first, but slowly rising in the stillness.

"What is that?" Adam whispered. He heard Cerce hold her breath as she listened, the barest glimmer of light reflecting from her eyes through the darkness.

"Wind. It's wind blowing from somewhere. Below us," she let the breath go, air warm on Adam's cheek. "This place goes down into the mountain."

"We need light. Light and heat, or we're gonna die in here Cerce."

He heard Cerce shift, her head glancing this way and that. White hair fell over her shoulders, and Adam could barely see it, grey amidst layers of black. 

"Check beside the doors, these old place are meant to have sconces for torches."

"Me check? Can't you see in the dark?" Adam hissed. He heard Cerce give a sigh of disbelief.

"Why would I be able to....you seriously think I can see in the dark?" she shoved at his chest with her elbow. 

Adam raised a hand out, peering through the darkness ahead of him, split only by the moonlight coming through the crack in the door. 

His hands touched the bare stone behind the door and he recoiled, the temperature so cold he couldn't tell if it was freezing or scorching. 

"There's one here but it's empty," came Cerce's voice from the other side of the door. "couple feet in, about my head height."

Adam slid his hands across, reaching up and across, and his wrist banged into something protruding.

"Got it, there's one here," Adam said as he gave a tug on the wooden torch and felt it grind loose. Dust trickled to the floor surprisingly loud. The head of the arm length torch was wrapped in a filthy rag, cold to the touch, brittle.

"No way this thing'll light, it's been here forever," Adam grumbled. 

"Adam..." Cerce whispered. 

"Ey, you still got that flask from Carnaby? The good Redroov Mountain stuff?" Adam fished on his belt, fumbling in the darkness for his flint, "might help it take."

"Adam there's...something there." Cerce's voice held a chill that made Adam freeze. 

He looked up, the torch in one hand and his other reaching for the hilt of his rapier. 

Deep in the darkness before them, a light was bobbing.

Adam saw Cerce shift in the darkness, her tall shape lowering, her legs stepping apart. The line of moonlight through the door glinting on the exposed head of her great halberd. Adam heard a deep exhale pour from the Nadyr's lips. 

 

The wild, aggressive way that Cerce fought had seemed chaotic and mindless to Adam the first few times he'd seen it. Like a dervish, twisting and swinging the great blade, her body writhing in the eye at the center of the storm. Long days at Cerce's side had taught Adam differently. 

Adam drew his rapier, silently and swiftly, and took his usual place just behind and to her right. She felt his presence, and took a step forward. 

"Who goes there?" Cerce yelled at the slowly wobbling light that approached through the darkness.

 The light illuminated as it went, shedding fluttering light on the grand hallway they seemed to be standing in. Cerce narrowed her eyes against the apparent optical illusion, the room so long that the monastery must surely extend far into the mountain upon which it stood.

"A humble servant, no more!" came the reply. A soft voice, steady. 

The flame came to a stop, and the figure who held it lowered the torch so as to illuminate himself. Sending a great shadow far behind him down the hall he'd appeared from. 

Yellow light spilled around him, lighting the entrance hall and making Adam inadvertently raise a hand to his eyes for a moment. Cerce stood sentinel and unmoving, adrenaline relieving the shivering cold for a brief moment. 

At first, the man had the impression of being broad, brawny. Shoulders high and wide, a body thick, but the gauntness of his face and the depth of the sockets his eyes were sunk into made it clear that the man was simply bundled into multiple heavy layers of thick brown robes.

"Just a humble servant, am I, welcoming new travelers to the home of the Blazing Light."

Adam gave a scoff of disbelief.

"You can't be serious." he said, and the monk turned his head to pointedly look at the thief.

"Light is found in the darkest of places, my quick-to-presume friend."

Adam raised an eyebrow, and found his eyes met when they darted to Cerce. 

"Prickly, for a monk, aren't we?" she asked. 

The man lowered his torch further, peering over the flame at the two friends. 

"Many who come here seek to disturb us. We may be a humble order but we have much work to do."

Adam gave a derisive grunt, but the monk continued undisturbed.

"I am Brother Locke, and here we tend the fires, to keep the cold at bay."

"Where's the rest of your people?" asked Cerce, partially lowering her weapon. She was straightening slightly, her guard dropping. Adam was still alert, his blade drawn, his eyes roaming the hall for others. 

Apart from the fire burning around Locke, there was only blackness.

"We are below, in the temple. The old monastery is so cold in the winter, we relocate below."

He extended the torch into the area between them, his sunken features seeming to wobble into distorted shapes in the moving light cast by the flame.

"I fear you've a wasted trip if you seek shelter though. We fast in the nights, and have little to spare. Perhaps you can seek your warmth elsewhere, travelers?"

Locke took another step forward, silent on the cold stone, and he jerked to a halt as his light fell upon Cerce and he came to look upon her.

"Oh," he stumbled over his own speech, his face suddenly animated, a smile spreading, "Oh my goodness look at you. You've come so far, haven't you?"

Cerce hesitated, before she placed the end of her halberd to the ground where it rested with a dull thunk. 

"We come north up from the Foul Mouth, called up here by..." she began, before she was almost immediately interrupted. Locke had stepped forward, careless of the harsh light that he was shedding upon the two travelers. Just a few steps away from Cerce Locke stopped to examine her.

"Goodness no, you've come some much further than that. So far, to get here, I'm so sorry it took so long."

Cerce darted a look back to Adam, whose eyes glinted back at hers in the dim yellow light. He gave the slightest of shrugs. 

"You've been... expecting us?" he asked, and was ignored. The monk only had eyes for Cerce.

"We've been waiting, I... The others will want to meet you immediately, miss. Please, what shall we call you?"

"I'm Cerce. I...came to help." she said. The monk positively beamed. His body vibrated with excitement and he made a grand show of inclining his head before her. 

"Cerce, Cerce," Locke repeated, drawing out the syllables long and slow. 

Sir-see. He practically hissed. 

Just as she became visibly uncomfortable with his sycophantism, the monk straightened and jerked the torch back the way he came. 

"Please! Come, come. The others will be so eager to look upon you," he stopped half turned, and looked as if he meant to attempt to take Cerce's hand, before he apparently thought better of it and began a brisk walk down the corridor. 

Cerce glanced back at the door, at the sliver of moonlight creeping through. The light from Locke's torch was already receding, plunging the doors into darkness and shadows, surging along the ground to swallow them once more. 

With a quick look at one another, Adam and Cerce began to follow.

Chapter 3.

Adam fixed his rapier to his belt once more, his pace quick and the heels of his boots clicking on the stone floor to keep pace behind Cerce's long and quiet strides.

Locke scurried forward ahead of them, a glowing orb in the darkness, continually half turning and tossing his gaze back over his shoulder to make sure he was being followed. 

"As the cold approaches we move below to stay as warm as we can, down in the old quarters," he explained as he walked, gesturing into the black void beyond each portal or archway they passed.

"Little up at this level now, the old hall is empty, the upper kitchens, and all above," he waved a hand nebulously above his head, "All empty now!" 

His voice verged on manic, his eyes wild as he glanced back to look at Cerce.

"How many stay here, Locke?" Cerce asked quietly, and he spun to walk backwards momentarily, his eyes on her.

"Oh just myself and the current order, and the new supplicants, any others left. Too cold for some, the work we do here. They all left, to find somewhere warmer."

"What's a supplicant?" asked Adam. Locke spared him a brief glance but ignored the question.

A yawning gap in the wall caught Cerce's eyes as they passed, enough light flicked into it to see nothing but the blackness it led to.

"How far below does it go?" she asked.

"Oh all the way down," Locke responded without turning, before immediately going on.

"Do you know when others will come?" he asked Cerce enthusiastically.

Cerce looked to Adam, shrugging.

"Others? You mean other monks? Why would I..." Cerce was cut off as Brother Locke turned and raised the light above his head.

"All the others! We're expecting everyone here! We can't wait forever!" he gave a brief and sudden laugh. He looked at Cerce as he continued down the hall, his shuffling backward steps uneven. 

"Brother Leece said you'd come soon, but we've waited so long for you. I was beginning to think.. well...we went through all the others, as we waited, how could he expect us to wait forever?!" his voice was losing clarity. Tears wet in his eyes, glittering in the swinging light of the lantern, "The ones who left! Ha, they...they'll see now, won't they?" 

"Wait, the supplicants? The children from the town? The children are still here?" Cerce asked. 

"Everyone's here," Locke said, "There must always be supplicants."

Adam realized he could no longer see the wall behind her when he looked to Cerce. The sloping stone on his own side had become harder to see too, curving off into the darkness beyond the circle of the lamp that Brother Locke held aloft. 

The monk was moving faster now, his feet slapping and scuffling on the ground beneath him, his breathing ragged. He gave a half laugh, then a sudden whoop of joy that disappeared into the dark without echo.

"She's arrived!" he suddenly blurted out, "She's here! She's finally here!" 

Cerce strode forward, her halberd gripped in her freezing hands, and made to reach for Locke's robe as it flailed behind him. 

Before her claws could snatch at the ragged material, the light was snuffed out. 

The darkness was absolute. So sudden and so startling it stopped Cerce in her stride as if she'd walked into a wall. She heard Adam's boots click to a halt, the uncertain shuffling of heels skidding as he turned this way and that. 

"I can't see anything, I can't..." he said, panic in his usually measured voice. 

Cerce was breathing through gritted teeth, her fangs bore at the corners of her lips. The dark fooled her, and she had the impression of reaching hands, of shapes moving, deeper black against the already complete darkness that gripped her. 

She hissed at Adam for silence. 

It was as absolute as the darkness, no wind, no echos. Cerce could hear her own heartbeat hammering in her chest like a drum. She began to be aware of a scent, hard to place, familiar. Like ozone, moss, mold. 

"Where are you?" she said quietly. 

"I'm...here?" Adam said, from just far enough away.

With a great swing of her arms, Cerce brought her halberd around and overhead in an arc, the blade striking and scraping across the floor, sending sparks flying and filling the halls with the deafening crash of metal on stone. 

In the flash of sparks, the figures were revealed. A circle around the two travelers, just visible on the edges of vision. Their robes brown, looming just a few feet away now.

As darkness descended once more, the smell came back again. Strong this time. Wet and clammy, floral, dank. The smell stuck to the back of the throat, thick and choking. 

Cerce found herself taking a deep and hurried breath, and heard Adam doing the same.

"I feel weird..." Adam moaned. Cerce blinked hard, feeling her eyes watering and a tightness in her throat gripping. 

"When I move, get ready to run," she whispered. She felt Adam's presence at her back, moving close behind her. She heard him respond, but somehow the words were lost, meaning seeming to flee into the darkness.

She became aware that the grip on her halberd was loose, the shaft resting on the ground. She curled her fingers again around it, trying to remember what she'd just said to Adam. She frowned, it was gone. 

Light slowly shone between the figures that massed around the pair. The illuminated brown robes of the monks shifting and swaying in the darkness. A figure was stepping forward, holding a low burning lantern in one hand, and seeming almost to float, so silent were their steps on the cold stone. From beneath the hood, a chuckle came.

The voice, when the figure finally spoke, was soft and calming.

"Brother Locke, thank-you for bringing our guests forth."

The accent was unfamiliar, the cadence lyrical. Cerce fought to listen, the weight behind her eyes increasing as the light was brought closer. The figure gave a deep and appreciative sigh.

"Oh. Oh my. The light shines upon all of us today, brothers and sisters."

The voices of the assembled came back in response.

The light shines. The light shines.

"We've all been waiting... so long, here, for you. I have waited." 

Locke leant forward into the light, his hands gripped before him, shaking.

"She wants to be called Cerce, Brother Leece."

"Thank-you Locke. I'm very grateful for everything you do," the figure named Leece extended a hand to touch Locke on the shoulder, and Locke dutifully retreated to the throng of monks.

"It's a beautiful name, Cerce. I had always wondered what they might call you," Leece said. His voice had a soporific quality, and Cerce stared into the darkness under his hood as he moved forward to her once more, now within arms reach. 

Cerce tried to speak, but found her speech slurred.

"Who're...who are..." she mumbled.

"I am Brother Leece. First among the Blazing Light. And you, are very, very welcome."

Leece raised the lantern in his hand, illuminating him. Beneath the heavy hood were vibrant, soulful blue eyes, staring from a startling and handsome face. Curls of white hair were visible around his sharp cheekbones, and at the corners of a wide curving smile were sharply pointed teeth. His skin was green.

"Our most dear sister."

Cerce stood frozen as Leece reached for her face. His fingertips brushed her cheek. 

Cerce was shoved aside and the world spun as Adam hurled himself into Leece with his entire weight.

She heard the great clang that rattled her ears and after a moment realized she'd dropped her halberd. She reached out for it desperately as movement in the darkness all around broke out. 

The lantern was snuffed out and hisses of orders and cries from among the ranks of the monks seemed to come from all directions. 

Cerce heard Adam scream for her to run. 

Hands surged from the blackness, gripping at her ankles, snatching handfuls of her hair, tugging at her clothes.

A hand gripped at Cerce's ear and pulled, jerking her head aside sharply and making Cerce cry out in pain. 

Leece's voice cut through the darkness, raised to a shout.

"DON'T. TOUCH. HER!"

The hands retreated, Cerce pulling herself free of the throng and scrambling across the cold floor. Getting her feet beneath her was proving difficult, and she stumbled drunkenly as she tried to move, the strange smell filling her senses. 

Her hands found a wall, and she clung to it, her legs feeling like she was wading through water. The sounds of the scuffle was getting further away. She heard a scream, and the sound of Adam's blade against stone. 

The wall seemed to give way, and as she stumbled forward to reach out for it again, found the floor beneath her abruptly drop. She fell, first a few feet, crashing into the vertical stone, then down again.

All light fled as she fell, spiraling, further into the blackness below. 

-

Part 3

Cyberpunk 2077 Review

For the last week I've been deep in the gritty streets and neon sidewalks of a city. 

It's almost my own city, but not quite. Occasionally I'll recognize a monument or a panorama that is straight out of the view outside my window, right here. For the rest of the time, the glowing streets of Night City are a world only a few brief steps removed from the horrors of the real. 

In Cyberpunk 2077, we step into the shoes of the futuristic everyhero, V. Delving into the machinations of skyline dominating megacorporations and the brutal life of street level crime, all the while listening to the backseat driving of a time displaced rocker-turned-terrorist. It's time to burn Night City to the ground. 

V is what you choose to make of them. The character customization of Cyberpunk 2077 is both impressively trailblazing and strangely crippled at the same time. How we design our version of protagonist V allows an assortment of choices and options that would be fantastic for a standard GTA style game, but beyond allowing some sci-fi options to eyes and metallic teeth, there's little here that actually takes advantage of the Cyberpunk genre. 

Being able to alter V's genitals separate of their body type allows for the illusion of gender subversion, but then having to choose your V's voice to officially designate them as 'male or female' in the eyes of all in-game characters immediately circumvents it and returns it to basically picking your male or female Shepard.

While it absolutely can't be understated that it is insane for an AAA title released in the west to let you create a slender femininely bodied V with a huge cock, it then feels like any further effort was diverted from sticking the landing in character customization, and I can't help but feel this is one of the areas the game may have been handicapped by the famously rushed final days well documented elsewhere.

After an opening introduction unique to your chosen character origin, you're let loose in the dark streets of Night City, and the hand holding is blissfully light. An issue often found in the genre is a habit of slowly introducing game mechanics mission by mission, piling them upon one another until ten missions later nothing has really passed but a series of game mechanics you'll never use again. Cyberpunk throws you into the deep end pretty much from the get go, with access to almost everything you can do in the game from the start. Something wonderful carried over from The Witcher 3 is the fact that almost any character build is effective and a legitimate direction to take your V. 

The guns blazing approach is fast and accurate, with the game definitely being optimized for the first person shooter design. Guns are wildly varied, from the usual pistols, revolvers, shotguns, sniper rifles and all manner of machine guns, but then added to this is the tech side of guns, allowing you to interface with certain weapons to take more effective control, sending bullets automatically seeking for heads in your enemies. 

A bit more unusual in a first person game is the ability to run a robust melee combat build, which is also extremely fun. Far more quick and accurate than trying to use close range weapons in something like The Elder Scolls, using fists here is fast and carries a great sense of impact. The default boxing is fine, but soon you'll be able to augment your arms into Mantis blades to slice up enemies, or Gorilla fists to deliver huge blunt force blows. Your arms can even be altered into the whip-like Monowire, or fitted with a projectile launcher to change standard grenade tossing into direct RPG accuracy with your bare hand. 

Outside of weaponry, you can also take the far more Cyberpunk route of Quickhacking, a system of multiple different tweaks and abilities allowing you to take advantage during combat, quick as you'd use something like spells in a fantasy game, to do things like shutting down your opponents optical sensors or exploding the grenades in their pockets, right up to sending viral system failures into a group of enemies and watching it jump from one to another like a fatal meme. Other uses of the Quickhacking system allows for avoiding large amounts of combat situations entirely if you prefer. Using stealth tricks and turning the environment to your advantage to either circumvent enemies or destroy them without even being seen becomes a devious and playful alternative to using weaponry. While you'll occasionally encounter enemies who will Quickhack you in turn, I only ever encountered them using simple DOTs on me, and it would have been fun and more challenging to encounter enemies who use some more nefarious hacks.

All these character equipment options are supported by a complex advancement system, growing with your level, with a wide variety of buffs and boosts, making certain weapons stronger, allowing you to apply debuffs with fists or adding bleeding effects to blades, and making your Quickhacks faster or adding a multitude of effects to them. Building into these skill trees adds to your chosen abilities drastically, upgrading hacking into real battlefield controlling effects and turning melee combatants into regenerating juggernauts. 

Taking the V you have crafted, genitals and mantis blades and all, into the underbelly of Night City, the game flourishes most in the characters you meet. From your best friend Jackie, a hardened child of the street with a heart of gold, to aging rock musicians turned gangsters and taxi driving sentient AIs, Cyberpunk 2077 has a wealth of fun and unique personalities to indulge in interacting with. Some of the games best moments are hidden deep in a wealth of complex side missions, with one easily missable moment involving a convicted murderer-turned-Night city messiah sticking out to me in particular.

And then of course, we come to Johnny Silverhand. It's impossible to even really talk about Cyberpunk 2077 without talking about Johnny Silverhand.

Johnny Silverhand is a complete piece of shit. He's an egomaniacal, narcissistic rocker well past his day in the limelight who once detonated a nuke in a major metropolis just to prove a point about capitalism. Johnny is forever at your side, judging your shitty choices, talking down your self worth, and forever reminding you that in the grand scope of the Megacorporations who run Night City, you are absolutely nothing. Johnny is both angel and devil on your shoulder at the same time, dropping by to share a story of fucking groupies at some long forgotten show, or to let you know he thinks the guy you're talking to is a wannabe poser or a corporate stooge. Johnny's presence is a unique facet of Cyberpunk 2077, and one of its most enjoyable elements. It was no forced star-power misstep to cast Keanu Reeves as Silverhand, because it's clear he loves the role, and somehow through all the crude, antagonistic snark he throws at you as you journey together through Night City, Silverhand is still lovable as all hell.

Night City itself is a wonderful world to take your journey through. It's energetic and absolutely filled with stuff. The constant barrage of noise and advertisements and buildings and stores is delightfully varied, fun to observe, and interesting to explore. The street art is incredible and unique and feels real. Even late in the game I came across very distinct looking unimportant NPCs who were wearing something I hadn't yet seen in the game before. The incidental characters on the street or filling out one of the cities many nightclubs or bars always wear something wild and they do seem designed, not randomized.

Seeing everyone else wearing such fantastic clothes continually hammers home how little we can customize our own protagonist though. You'll casually run into characters wearing spiked cocktail dresses, huge fur coats, translucent plastic mini skirts and all manner of outrageous sci-fi styles, but we as V don't have access to any such garments. The clothing you can buy in stores is all a little samey, mainly consisting of street wear that wouldn't look particularly out of place in a GTA game, and doesn't jump out as wildly cyberpunk in most cases. Another oversight is the inability to really alter your character. We see people on the street who have chrome flesh from head to toe, cops with glowing cybernetic eye implants, and one of the gangs is based around heavy augmentation and routinely has entire facial organs replaced with all manner of glowing red orbs or mechanical jaws. Why on Earth can't we do this too! The lack of getting to have even something as simple as a robot arm in character creation seems to miss out on half the fun of living in a Cyberpunk world.  

Night City of course isn't complete with out its nightlife. The gangs of Night City, both the style and overall concept of each one, formed a large part of the games design push pre-release and are present in just about every bit of supplemental content about the game. The sexy all-female Moxes, the monstrous heavily augmented Maelstrom, Soviet Scavengers, Japanese Yakuza themed Tyger Claws, the dubiously voodoo themed... Voodoo Boys, all of them have a distinct stylistic flair, an atmosphere that colours the city as we interact with and combat each gang.

The thing is though, we really don't. The gangs are completely secondary to the main story, and really only form a small aspect of the city as a whole, which is a mystifying design choice. 

Even a quick glance at the in game map of Night City sees it separated by area, with the symbol of the gang that primarily operates there, but they never really come up as you navigate the area. Start a fight in any area of the game, it's the same police who come after you, when it would have been much more fun for it to have been that particular areas designated gang instead. Fighting a string of identical police robots is dull compared to, for example, facing a group of Tyger Claws with katanas riding up on motorbikes or the attack of a crew of barely-dressed Moxes wielding baseball bats.

While we have some minor interactions with Maelstrom and the Voodoo Boys in the main story, it's brief. Many of the gangs, especially fringe ones like the Scavengers and 6th Street, are completely ancillary to the game as a whole, and feel like they're barely fleshed out whatsoever. 

The presence of the gangs should be a major way to make coming to each of Night City's seven boroughs feel distinct, and their absence in the story and even just casual play of the game itself is a disappointment considering the atmosphere they could have helped add to the city. 

The only real interaction we have with each different borough is the presence of the 'fixers'. These characters communicate with V through text message and video calls and generally act as your quest givers for each hub, sending you details on things to steal, people to kill or cars to buy. Each is different and has their own personality, some more than others, but generally the fixers aren't as important in the grand scheme of things as it seems they should be. 

We don't really know why V is compelled to interact with most of these fixers at all. A couple are connected to us through the story, but some simply call us up out of the blue and expect us to dutifully run off to complete a side quest for them. 

In one extremely memorable sequence, V meets a local gang leader, and takes a walk with them through the slums of their city. We watch how they interact with locals, how they talk about their corner of Night City, and listen to how they expect V to help them with their own goals. This brilliant moment gave us everything we needed to know not just about this character and the part he plays in everything, but unveiled the uniqueness of that specific part of night city. It would have been great if every fixer got such a neat introduction to the narrative as well. 

The times in the game that we take a step away from Night City and journey into the nearby Badlands are surprisingly poignant. You'll find yourself driving through endless rolling dunes of trash, discarded electronics and kitchen appliances while the city sits, gigantic on the horizon, belching smog and advertisements into the skies. The roads of the old world are there, partially buried under dirt and burned out cars, but what's there looks uncomfortably like it does in reality today. You'll pass motels and bars, old truck stops and bus stops that are relics of times gone past, but something you'd see any time you were to head even a few miles outside of the real Los Angeles. 

You'll spend a fair amount of time speeding around Night City and the surrounding area, and of course you'll do it in one of the games many vehicles. While early on you're supplied with a starter vehicle fitting the starting concept you picked for your V, you'll soon find yourself without one and in need of wheels if you'd prefer to avoid hoofing it around Night City. While the fast travel system is helpful, by the end of the game you can zip immediately pretty much anywhere you need to go, it's a big place in the meantime. 

The variety of cars and bikes you can steal on the street GTA style is what you'd expect from the genre, and the rest you can purchase from your fixers or be rewarded with if you play your cards right in certain side missions or story chapters. Another example of the game choosing quality of life over realism, any vehicle you own disappears into a nebulous off-screen garage to be summoned to your location instantly at any time, and you can leave them wherever you like without worry that they will ever be damaged or lost. However by the time you're earning enough money and respect to purchase one of the many high end futuristic sports cars or anime style superbikes, you may find the convenience of the fast travel has replaced any need to actually use them. 

The more time I spent in Night City, the more I enjoyed myself. Cyberpunk 2077 started off a little quiet for me, and it took a moment for me to get the feel for it, but when the story decides suddenly to take the plunge and grip you, you best believe it fucking does. There's moments of cinematic tension that are immensely entertaining, and some quiet scenes of unexpected tenderness that stuck with me. Johnny Silverhand knows a little about losing yourself, feeling like you don't know who you are at times, feeling lost in the world. The story is, at it's heart, a personal one, and searching for a way just to continue to be yourself is a powerful drive beyond any villainous scheme or a typical saving the world yarn.

The way V's story can end is varied depending on your choices, from quietly satisfying to deeply sad, but all endings are a spectacle to be a part of and worth seeing.  

While it has been covered at great length elsewhere, it's impossible to fully look back at Cyberpunk 2077 as a whole without addressing the issue of bugs. As with bugs and glitches in all games, YOUR MILEAGE MAY VARY. I personally was very lucky, and in my 70+ hours exploring every inch of Night City on a PS4 Pro system, I encountered only a handful of minor bugs, all solved by a quick restart to a recent autosave, and a few instances of crashing. The game would sometimes take its time fully loading in a new area, with textures and character details popping in over a few seconds, and occasionally I'd run into strange graphical quirks like an individual clearly smoking their gun instead of a cigarette. Patches in the first week since release seem to have begun to iron out issues, and already the game does seem overall more stable. Nothing still found in game is truly game breaking, and if you don't mind a few odd or sometimes hilarious graphical quirks here and there, you'll likely find nothing that bad among the bugs to still be found in Cyberpunk 2077. 

I enjoyed my time in Night City. The story itself rounds out to a solid 25 hours, and the side missions and world around it flesh out another 30. I'd love to see the world grow and expand, and some of those missing aspects filled out in the future. I've got the feeling I've not quite burned enough of the city to the ground just yet. 

-

I played Cyberpunk 2077 on a PS4 Pro. 

In the Mountains, the Dreams (A Cerce Stormbringer Story) Part 1.

Chapter 1

Cerce Stormbringer wiped rain from her eyes and held a hand to her brow, she was staring through the torrential storm at the village nestled among the mountain shadows.
The quaint little place had been a bastard to find, and her heavy cloak, together with everything she wore under it, was sopping wet from the ceaseless downpour. 

For the last hour it had seemed that every step had got colder. Trudging one foot after the other, a shiver had started somewhere deep in Cerce's limbs.
Using her halberd as a walking aid, she continued off up the steep incline, her boots crunching over thick green undergrowth. 

Once lush, the green was going brittle in the cold, the touch of glimmering ice hanging to branches as the two travelers passed. 

She glanced over her shoulder and gave a smile to Adam, who followed a few paces back. He gripped his grey cloak around him tightly, and just the glimpse of his stormy blue eyes peering out from beneath his wide brimmed hat made Cerce laugh.

"You look like a cat that got left out in the rain, mate," Cerce said, giggling at her friend.

"I'm well aware. We don't do well in the wet," Adam grumbled.

"Then you live in the wrong part of the country then don't you? Come on, not far now."

The town of Ancreed was practically invisible, hidden as it was in the rainy mountainside, and as Cerce and Adam trod their squelchy boots onto the first of the cracked cobbled streets, it didn't look like the outside world was missing much.

A lone piglet scampered across the deserted street, and Cerce found herself peering up at the buildings that tilted over her, expecting ghosts at every dark window. Fountains of rainwater fell from the corners of every building to splatter noisily to the street below, and a small flood surged past in the gutters of the road, trailing off on it's merry way down the mountain. 

The buildings were threaded through with creepers and vines, and the entire town seemed to tilt a little, like it was about to fall asleep and tumble off the mountain any moment. The door to the local inn was wide and heavy, and Cerce had to put her weight against it before the thing shifted in and opened into the dim room beyond.

The rush of warm air from the inn's hearth was instantly welcoming, and Adam began shaking off his cloak the moment they entered the building. His wide travelling hat placed on a nearby hook, his ashen hair fell carelessly about his face. 

"Soaked to the skin I am. Typical. You see the state of this place? If I find pigshit on my boots..." Adam cursed.

The thief tossed his cloak from his shoulders and onto the nearby hooks, and turned to his companion.

It was deathly silent in the little inn, and every face within the room was turned up and towards the new arrivals. Adam gave a low cough of embarrassment.

"Nice...nice sort of spot isn't it? Cozy like," he said. Cerce gave him a wink.

"Cozy enough, yeah. You got the, ah...?"

Adam fished into the pocket of his tight grey trousers, and handed Cerce the little folded paper.

The Stormbringer placed her halberd down with a heavy thunk, the gleaming silver head resting against the wall. Cerce strode to the bar, unfolding the letter in her gloved hands. Adam slumped into the closest chair and kicked his sharp heeled boots up. He felt eyes on him, but that was to be expected.

The unique culture found within the drinking holes of the Isles was a subject in which Adam Serra could confidently say his opinion was expert. The faces within this locale, however, were haunting. Each face belonged to a man of prematurely advanced age, weathered hands grasping wooden cups.

The old men showed none of the standard animosity for the noisy stranger in his outlandish clothes. Neither were there the commonplace hateful or suspicious looks darkening the air towards Cerce, rare race that she was, as she stood leaning at the bar.

Her heavy forest green cloak now hanging from the wall, Cerce was in a blood red leather jerkin and white shirt. Her long legs were draped in a black skirt that clung to her damply, and she gave a shake of her muddy riding boots as Adam watched her exchange a few words with the bartender. Her thick white hair was partially tied up with twine, the rest hanging down her back in a simple plait.

Adam tried to smile when the bartender looked over his way, and the old man gave a curt nod instead.

A lanky teenager appeared from behind the bar, and with a few signals from the bartender, was sent sprinting off out the front door, hands over his head to shield from the rain.

Adam watched the rain pour down out the door for a moment, and looked up when Cerce returned to seat herself at the table with a pint in each hand.

"He'll be along soon, sit tight." She said.

Cerce placed one cup down in front of Adam and slumped into the chair opposite. Adam immediately reached for it and placed it to his lips. After he'd taken a deep gulp from it he replaced the tart cider on the table and exhaled loudly.

"Cheers girl. I needed that. I thought we'd wander that bloody forest forever." Adam sighed. He leaned in a little, straightening the frilled white cuffs of his shirt, and raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

"Not a well trodden path was it? Good job he was sharp with the directions, this guy." Cerce said between sips. She was looking down at the little piece of paper she had shown the bartender, her eyes squinting. She waved the letter to Adam, and he took it.

"'Willam Black'," Adam read, "Good old fashioned name isn't it?"

"He didn't say much else right?" Cerce asked, tapping the page. Adam shook his head, he'd read the thing a dozen times over on the way here.

"'They need help' is the general gist of it, not a whole lot more forthcoming."

Cerce tapped her nails on her cup and chewed on her lower lip.

"Why they always come to me, Adam?" Cerce asked. Adam spread his hands wide.

"Don't knock it, love, there's a lot of ways to make money in the world, not many of them involve helping people. You should be happy for that, y'should."

Cerce stopped the drumming of her fingertips to look Adam straight in the eyes. Her eyes were brighter and bluer than his, attention grabbing in any situation. She pointed a long black nail at him.

"When I first arrived in the Foul Mouth, you know what you were doing?" Cerce asked.

Adam took up his drink again and mumbled something into it in response.

"You were ripping off new arrivals to the port for everything they had."

"It wasn't my idea, it was an established racket, I was simply..." Adam fought for words.

"Simply ripping off people for everything they had."

"Well yes. But what I'm getting at is, that's one way to do things. I heard stories of a certain Nadyr highwaywoman knocking over carriages on the western roads outside of Truronia not long before we met. And you know Carnaby got his start in the mercenary business because he'd show up to camps pretending to be a commissions officer and then scarper with everything not nailed down in the middle of the night?"

"Ha!"

"Yeah, we've all done some dirty shit to get by, my lovely. But now you're a hero, and people will send you letters asking for your blessing, or your very divine presence, and occasionally genuinely asking for help..."

Adam smiled, and Cerce rolled her eyes.

"I know. I shouldn't knock it. Still... I didn't ask for that."

Adam nodded to the huge head of Cerce's halberd, leaning against the wall nearby.

"You knew something was up when you chose to pick up that big bastard for the first time. You made your bloody bed, now do some heroics in it."

The teenager returned shortly, his floppy brown hair soaked, and trailing in behind him in a heavy winter coat was a large elderly man who Adam thought bore more than a passing resemblance to a giant boiled egg.

Willam Black raised a hand in greeting to the bartender, but strode straight to Cerce and Adam's table.

His expression as he greeted the two travelers was almost pained, a strained smile crossing his wide features. Cerce stood to receive him.

"Judge Black?" Cerce asked, the man extended a meaty hand and took Cerce's.

"Yes, Willam, if it please you, Madam. I can't tell you how thankful I am you've come. May I?" he gestured to the table.

"Of course, and just Cerce, please."

Adam took his boots down as quietly as he could, but by the time he was about the rise the other two had seated. He instead gave a straightening pull of his shirt and gestured to the bartender for another round.

"This is my friend, Adam," Cerce said, nodding towards the thief. Adam extended a hand, and Willam looked at it for a moment before taking it.

"Adam Serra, we've met before," Willam said, his deep set eyes scanning the cut of Adam's clothes up and down. Adam regarded him, curious, for a moment, before shaking his head in acknowledgement.

"Now, I thought that name seemed familiar," Adam tilted his head to Cerce, but kept eyes on the judge.

"Judge Black here used to dispense law out of Truronia, if I'm not mistaken."

"And Mr Serra here is well known to anyone who dispenses justice, isn't that right?"

There was a moment where the two stared at each other.

Cerce extended a green fleshed hand and placed it over one of Willam's pale, calloused ones. The man looked down at it; surprised.

"Adam has been my closest friend for years now, Mr Black. Willam. Without him I'd not be the woman I am today."

She lifted her hand, as the bartender arrived with a round. As the drinks were placed down on the table, Cerce kept eyes on the Judge, and smiled.

"Adam was just telling me to appreciate the things we have at the moment, and I'm very thankful for him."

Adam was genuinely blushing, and looked down at himself.

Willam dropped his gaze too, and laughed. He pointed a chubby finger at Adam and waved it.

"You always were the very smoothest of talkers, Adam, and you're right. You never know what you might lose any moment. I'm not the man I once was either, Serra. I learned to enjoy life, believe it or not. Still," he paused, taking up his drink, "one day you will have to tell me how you escaped the Truronia gaol that time, I never could figure it out."

The Judge stared at the foam on top of his drink, but made no move to take it yet.

Cerce shifted, rubbing hands up her shoulders.

"Is it always so bloody cold up here? I saw ice on the trees not far out from town."

The man awkwardly fumbled with the buttons on his jacket. 

"It's... unseasonably cold for the time, it certainly is," Willam mumbled, before finally placing his hands flat upon the table in front of him. 

"Miss Cerce we need you," he said, shaking his head slowly, "I'm so glad you came. We don't know who else to turn to."

"Your letter was...brief, Willam. I don't know why I'm here," Cerce said.

"I'm sorry for all the mystery, yes. I didn't know if it would even reach you. I mean, a waterfront tavern in the Foul Mouth?"

Cerce shrugged,

"You wouldn't believe the places I've met people. Your letter said you needed help?"

Adam became aware the faces in the tavern were watching them. Men, peering towards the quiet conversation happening with sullen eyes.

"We do indeed, miss Cerce," Willam started. He ran a hand over his bald head and knotted his fingers together before him, "It's... the monastery in the hills."

Adam arched a gray eyebrow immediately. Willam quickly raised a hand to him.

"No, no it's not like you think. They're good people up there. Well, they used to be. I don't know."

"Start at the beginning, Willam," Cerce said, she folded her arms and nodded encouragement.

 The Judge sighed, and slowly began.

"The monastery has been there a long time. Since before the Shattering, even. It was a place for travelers could stop on their way to the east, or Truronia. It was here when Ancreed was built. Monks were said to have come down and helped with the cornerstones of the town. They were good people."

"Where did they come from? The Monks?" Adam asked.

"Oh, all over the place. It was seen as a calling, a safe place to go, respected even. We had a town guardsmen join their number, decade or so ago now. His family would go up and see him come the solstice, sometimes. They couldn't go in, but they'd be able to see him outside, said it was nice up there. Animals, goats and the like, you know."

Cerce and Adam gave a glance at each other simultaneously.

"I think I know what's coming. When did they start getting weird?" Adam asked. Willam chewed on his tongue a moment.

"I suppose it was about...four years ago they started to get on the reclusive side. We'd hear from them less, hear from them even less than that. Far as we know, no supplies went up to them anymore, so they must have everything they need up there. Time went past and we'd not see them anymore at all. The first time we saw them in months was when they first come down asking for the criminals."

"Oof. Yeah, I see where this is going," said Adam. Willam nodded slowly.

"Didn't even really consider it at the time, you know. Good people, holy people. They'd taken in the misguided before, thieves, what have you. People who might be on the road to worse. They were meant to be a place to learn to be good. Wasn't till months later, after we'd sent six men up the mountain, that one of the town kids went up there and saw...well, what they saw."

Willam met Cerce's gaze, his little eyes were wet.

"We didn't believe her at the time, the girl. She came home with horror stories of what the monks were doing up there, dark stuff. Dark. We chalked it all up to the usual fears of the forest, and the dreams people had been having. You know how it is, one man talks about horrible nightmares you'll all start having them. But a few days later, in the night. The monks, they came for her."

Willam looked across the room, at the faces staring back at him.

"Young men in the town put a group together, six men went up there to get her back."

Willam hung his head.

"The next time there was motion up on the mountain, we thought the men were returning. But it wasn't. The monks came back. They took them all. Gods forgive me, they took all the children."

"Shit," whispered Adam. Cerce was staring into her drink.

"How many of them?" she asked.

"The children? Twelve, twelve of them gone," Willam muttered.

"The monks, how many are there?" Cerce clarified, her voice stern.

"We have no idea. No one has been inside the place in decades. Can't be many surely, but..."

Adam sat up,

"What's the monastery for? Who do they worship?"

Before Willam could answer, an old man spoke up across the room.

"Horrible things, up there. Horrible Gods, they worship. Monsters," the old man said. His voice was breaking with anger, and he pointed a gnarled finger at Willam, "and you should've listened to her, that girl, when she told you what they was doing up there. It's your fault, Judge!"

The man turned his head away with a great grunt, gripping his cup tightly.

Willam, flustered, stammered over his words.

"I'm not the man I once was, I'm old, I'm fat. I can't look after this town. I don't know if ours are still alive up there, I don't know what horrors have taken that place, but we need your help, we need the Stormbringer."

Cerce was leaning back in her chair. Her hands draped around her cup.

"I've seen zealots before," Cerce said, "I've seen what happens when religious men get turned about. It's the scariest thing in the world. There's a point somewhere, some step, and once they've gone off that step nothing you can say will get them to climb back up it again. You can't reason with them, you can't talk to them, and you can't make sense of it. If it's not in their book or their hymns or their holy symbols, then it just doesn't matter as far as they're concerned."

She exhaled and drained the rest of her cup.

"But you'll help?" Willam asked quietly.

Cerce looked up at him, shocked.

"'Course I will."

She smiled, Willam breathed.

"Thank you, Cerce, I..."

"How far is it to the monastery?" Cerce asked.

"About two hours hike, up through the forest."

"Can you get us something to eat? We'll warm up, and leave as soon as the sun's down."

Willam rose to his feet, his energy renewed.

"Of course, of course! Barnaby, food!" the Judge shouted to the bartender, "thank-you, Madam Stormbringer, all of Ancreed thanks you; really."

Cerce inclined her head, and Willam reached to enthusiastically grip her hand in his great grip.

"Please let me know if there's anything you need," the judge said.

"Just good directions, that's all." Cerce responded.

"Immediately, I shall return!" Nodding so that the fat of his neck wobbled, Willam rushed to claim his cloak.

The inn was left in sudden silence after the man left, but the mood had altered. There were nods of friendliness from the patrons, raises of cups. The bartender had left to busy himself with food.

Adam watched Cerce from across the table.

"Not one word of payment, you notice that?" he asked. Cerce shrugged.

"Heroics, right?" She said.

"Yeah. Looks like we're getting dinner out of it at least."

"That you saying you're coming along then?" Cerce asked. Adam stared back at her levelly.

"Of course I will. Come on love, it's kids. I may be a complete bastard but...you know. Besides, I'm not letting you go up a hill to get sacrificed by monks alone, Cerce. Even you need rescuing once in a while."

"What is it with the sacrifices? It's every time isn't it? Always a naked girl," Cerce said, finishing off her second drink. Adam agreed enthusiastically.

"Two ways to get a woman naked easy," he counted down two fingers, "artist, religious cult."

"You told me you were a painter the first time we met."

"Well, don't have the look of a cult leader do I?" Adam pouted.

Cerce gave an exasperated laugh and shoved Adam's shoulder.

"Glad to have you with me, you dirty bastard."

"The pleasure is always mine, Cerce."

-

Part 2