Assassins vs Bodyguards

Chapter 1 (Kalren's mission)

Shit, vomit, and piss. 

That's what death smells like. Some say it's the smell of copper, of the steel, and of the blood it sheds. But to Kalren, it has always been the aftermath of a soul withdrawing from this plane, leaving its flesh to purge and rot. 

Unfortunately, for Kalren, that's exactly what the tavern he happened upon smelled like. Though his face remained stoic, he couldn't help but breathe through his mouth, hoping to relieve the urge to gag. It did not.

Blending in with the crowd, he stumbled jovially with the men around the bard. With a swipe of his hand and a nonsensical twirl, he had snatched a tankard of ale and locked arms with a couple of dancing drunkards, with no one the wiser. It wasn't long before they chatted and joked around with him like he was one of their own. But even if he staggered and carried on conversations with a group of strangers, he still kept an eye towards the door, and an ear to the ground, waiting patiently for the one person he was here for. He drank ale and danced with the men and women to the bard's festive music, but his sharp hearing still picked up the whispers that seemed to go unnoticed by everyone else.

"How many this time?" a courtesan, or a Redgirl, said beneath her fan to the lady beside her.

"terrible....it was a bloodbath...." an old man said dismally, shaking his head.

"If there were any survivors, there's no doubt they've already been sold off."

And so went the undercurrent of the murmurs. This was not surprising to him. The borders between Aethralia and Morhaven had always suffered skirmishes and banditry; selling off people seemed just another step in the escalation of hostilities between the two nations. It left a bitter taste in his mouth, even more so than the rancid air of the tavern.

And then he saw them: a small group of four burly men. "Mercenaries" practically screamed from how they moved and by the way their eyes scanned the room. Behind them, a middle-aged man strolled in. He seemed out of place in his bright blues clothing, but for the scar that trailed from his right ear to his chin made it clear that he was one of them, just richer. Gyred, a common thug, turned mercenary, turned leader of the Talons. He had always been a vain man, from what Kalren had gathered, but it was ridiculous to see such a tower of a man flicking aside from his face the wide white feather that decorated his hat.

It was time.

"Wench!" he called out, leaning back and looking over to the bar. "Why in the gods' name is my cup empty?"

He was cut off when he leaned too far back, dragging his friends with him onto the table behind them. A burst of guffaws and drunken laughter joined in the chaos, and his new friends helped to pick him and the others up from the grimy floor. He would have to burn this shirt, he thought dryly as he patted his pants and trousers. "Dammit, and my wife just washed this this morning!" he yelled with a burp.

"Bah, women live to clean anyhow!" Finneck, his "friend," responded. Kael tried not to grimace at the stench permeating his breath or how his shout made his ears ring.

But Kalren smirked with relief that he didn't have to deal with any of them anymore; he had just completed what he needed to do. For Kalren, slipping into a stranger's life was easy; from one breath to the next, he could change the way he looked, talked, and even walked. A soothsayer, the only person who ever saw through his ways, had mentioned he also had the ability to change his aura. He had liked the sound of that. People trusted him when he wanted them to. He could make them hate him, envy him, or lust for him. And if they were weak-willed enough, he could make them die for him. What the old mage didn't realize was that he could do even more than that.