Jonathon Worthington: Strangelight Investigator

Case #18: The Mystery of the Purloined Past (Chapter 9)

Tinted goggles were a poor choice of accessory in the deepening night.

The Rigs would have been a nightmare to maneuver through during the day for a ground-lubber like myself, but at night it became an impossible tangle of lines and debris backlit by the torches and lanterns on the ground. I t was difficult to tell where the individual ropes lay, and even judging the distance between two lines that looked close to each other could result in a very long fall with a very messy end.

With an irritated sigh I yanked the goggles off, but it did little to help the situation. The ropes under Little Sins were slick with accumulated soot and ash from countless clouds of hooaga smoke; unlike the other paths of entry the lines were rarely if ever used, and the buildup had been accumulating for untold years. My frustration with the little inconveniences was making me more enraged by the minute, but it wasn't the difficult climb ahead that was truly bothering me.

I'd discovered more of my history, who I had been before the blood tattoos, and just like before it was less fulfilling than I'd hoped. Every time that I managed to dredge up a section of my past there was naught but pain and disappointment waiting. Perhaps Orsch had been right after all. Maybe I would have been happier dwelling in ignorance, traveling the land for the rest of my days as he lied to me about our lives. At least we'd been doing some good for the world as investigators for the Workshop, even if it was against Orsch's constant exhortations about prioritizing self-interest over assisting others. The ogrun had little in the way of a moral compass, which likely was more a comment on my previous incarnation than any personal failing of his. A sworn servant was as likely to follow his korune's example as not in attitude and ethics, and if Orsch's behavior was any metric then I'd been quite an unpleasant fellow indeed.

It was a pointless exercise in thought. If my current personality was truly a construct of some sort and fated to destruction, as Orsch believed, then I'd discover who I really was all too soon. For now I was left to muddle through life as best I could, and tonight that meant finding a safe haven in a very unfriendly town with no coin or resources, all while Aria and Orsch hunted me through the darkness.

The sounds of two sets of clawed feet skittering across the floorboards above brought me out of my maudlin reverie. While one of the people in the shop was obviously Lil the newcomer could only be her mysterious employer. I froze in place, barely daring to breathe for fear of being heard. Muffled voices, high-pitched and angry, rose up and down in argument. I strained to make out what they were saying, but the floor was too thick and the sounds of the city as it wound down from the day's labors were too raucous to allow for easy eavesdropping. Instead, I concentrated on the noise of the movement above. From the distribution of weight and the clicking sound of unshod claws rattling against the floor there was little doubt after a moment that Lil's visitor was another of the little folk, either a gobber or bogrin, and one significantly smaller than herself. What possible reason could one of her species have for engaging Lil to spy on me?

My answer came in the form of maniacal giggling.

The blood froze in my veins as a gobber's insane high-pitched laughter cut through the floorboards above. I nearly lost my grip on the ropes of the rigging as my mind was thrust back to the mining town of Outpost Five and the nightmare scene under the dilapidated mansion there. Visions assaulted me of men flailing helplessly on Orgoth slaughter-hooks as their bodies were ruthlessly mauled to provide the materials for an abomination of flesh and iron. Another peal of laughter that was far too familiar for comfort pierced the night air and caused the panic to well up within me.

Lil's employer was Titan, the giggling gobber that had descended into blighted madness and murdered his family and friends at Outpost Five.

One part of my mind split itself off from the primary mass, allowing a cold and calculating version of me to observe that it all made sense. Before Aria had kidnapped the insane little bastard Titan had been obsessed with using the blood runes carved into my body to animate his monstrous new body, to give it the dexterity and grace that his own demented genius could not. Who else would even know of the existence of a bogrin smoldress in Five Fingers, let alone contract the woman to keep an eye on me? Lil had revealed that she'd been watching me for two months; that, combined with Orsch's chiding comment to Aria about her escaped acolyte, could only mean that the demented little Titan had been in the city for a while, watching and waiting for me to summon the bloody tattoos back so that he could finish his dread work. But it would be useless for him; I'd destroyed his new body, the one he'd called Junior, back at Outpost Five.