Sariel: 20th April: Kargos Capital, Slum District
The sun was creeping through the blinds and
I began to understand a few things while living in the slum house.
The half-elves are even bigger children than I am.
It was less of a settle down and more of a hunker down, and bear with it. If im totally honest, I would've preferred to stay in my awkwardness.
Dom and Lev, who were but a year younger than me, would argue and fight over who would get the pick on the biggest rat once they had left for "work"; this would go on for hours on end.
Katarina and Lexi would almost always be found silently playing dolls with each other, with figurines they made out of carved wood.
Which I later found out from Lev was after they came begging and crying for them until Cook gave in and threw a log in their general direction.
Katarina was the older one around my age; she did not seem to like me much. And lexi hadnt spoken a word since I had arrived here.
Selwyn would jump around the place like he actively enjoyed my annoyance when I pulled my face from a book to scold him. He was the youngest, and although I enjoyed his antics on occasion. I found out quickly that without me telling him explicitly what and what not to do, my life would be a very dark place here.
I quite enjoy books.
As a despised half-elf girl, there's only so much one can do after admiring the stock of the fiftieth merchant horse to pass through the village.
So I turned my attention to the books my father gifted to my mother,
Before he so rudely disappeared.
I know that most girls my age, who are not highborn, do not concern themselves with reading.
But not a single person here could even read the fucking title; they had to neg me about it as though I were some sort of parrot or crow that would spit up the information on command.
I feel like an oddity in this place.
I looked up from my book for the seventh time today, and it was barely passing eight in the morning.
I pushed past Selwyn's intruding features as soon as they peaked through, though it was at high cost to my ears after his flagrant shouting.
walking towards the…. kitchen…. if it deserved such a title.
It had a stove, yes, but half of it was blacker than the freckles dotted about me, and the other half had a very large crack running through it.
If this could be called a kitchen, then Im a world-renowned rat catcher.
I picked up some half-eaten lettuce that was left out by one of the girls, I munched down on it, and it was not but a few seconds later before I had to rush towards the bathroom.
I realised that I was bleeding.
I locked myself inside and removed my clothes, and to be entirely honest with you, this was the main reason why my irritability has reached its true peak today.
The foul freckles were infesting my body even more.
These star-shaped gnats would be less of an issue if it weren't for the fact that every time one pops up, the flesh from my body is replaced by it, causing a sort of spot popping from my body. It was disgusting.
I can't let anybody see me like this; they'll think I have the plague.
DO I HAVE THE PLAGUE?
…
I walked back out, falsifying my calm temperament down to the last detail.
It was at that exact moment that the all too familiar beast of a man burst through that pitiful excuse for a door again.
He shook the whole house as he entered.
It felt as though the bricks might collapse in on us, and Cook would still be standing there with his stupid grin plastered on his face,
As we were crushed by the rubble.
-" Got some toys for you to play with today"
He was carrying three long daggers, the same number of slingshots, and a heavy-looking net with him. He threw them onto the floor with a thud.
-"A whole arsenal, for rat catching, I presume?"
-" alright so the knives are for the boys, slingers for the girls, and the net is for you, sweetheart"
He pointed at me with that last remark.
I felt the rumble of the rest of the occupants of the house, filling up the room all at once.
I watched Selwyn pick up a blade, before the thought dawned on me that he'd probably manage to put it through his eye somehow.
-"Cook, do you think it might be better if Selwyn were to have the net, and I were to use the blade?"
Cook glared at me.
-"You want a go at the big stuff, do you then!"
He laughed for an uncomfortably long amount of time.
My foot might have wandered into Selywn's backside before he squealed out
-"y..yes mr cook Im not sure I can handle something THAT sharp. I mIgHt PoKe My EyE oUt"
One dig later for the sarcasm, and I was now the proud owner of a new rat-catching weapon. Selwyn would get over it, he should stop being so childish, and maybe he might suffer less in the future.
For breakfast, we all enjoyed green soup prepared by Katarina and Dom (a local delicacy, I deduced).
We all head off into the slums to actually get on with the job. I acquired the sense that this might be less mind-numbing than expected…
???: 20th April: Kargos Capital
Nearing sunset.
The Elven Girl opened her eyes and stared at the same walls she had been staring at every day since she was brought there. Fear was the one consistent factor.
She was trying to keep her own spirits high by reciting verses in her head. She felt that the braces keeping her arms in place were less tight than when she had first been put here.
-"I really do hope that nobody finds me here"
She said to no one in particular
-"This is a very mean and bad thing you guys are doing to me here"
Cook shuffled slightly, but clearly was not in the mood to justify himself with a response today.
The girl began to break down in tears; her life, her time, was being wasted away in this cell, and what could she even do? Not even her captor would talk to her, she thought.
At this point, she had been crying for around 15 minutes before Cook decided he had had enough.
-" Was gonna do this later, but it seems like you're having a hard time without old cook in here arent you?"
He smiled at her with his mismatched teeth on display.
-" Can you just let me go soon, please? You know me Cook, I helped the church do good things for people here, y..you know me."
Cook could barely contain his glee at seeing the girl's pain spread bare across her face.
He was truly waiting for this moment.
Before this, she had been chipper, if not compliant with her predicament. But now it gets to his favourite part…
Getting to break her apart.
Sariel: 20th April: Kargos Capital, Slums
I felt a calm lull over me,
The younger ones behind me were singing songs about our yet-to-be-had adventures, as though there wasn't a care in the world.
The dirty looks from onlookers were not uncommon here; we were all mongrels, rats hunting rats.
I wasn't about to let them sour our moods,
The younger ones were ahead of me when Katarina pulled me aside with a glance.
I walked beside her, leaning in closely so we could talk.
-"I can't stand it, they look at us like were less than animals, sometimes I wish they would all just eat shit and die"
This was the first time I had seen a fierce side in Katarina. To be entirely honest Im quite impressed.
-"I know, it's sad. But we have a job to do, and we can't let the little ones know that they're looking at us like the horse shit on the ground."
I gave her a short hug before moving back towards Dom, Lexi and lev.
Selwyn was never far behind me.
I had noticed him copying me when he thought I wasn't looking.
He would mutter what I had said to cook back to himself as we were walking, and strike poses as though he were me, and Lexi's back was Cook.
We made it to the most rat-infested area of the slums, otherwise known as the market.
This was where I had to get serious; everyone else only had to get five rats, but my quota was almost a baker's dozen.
Then I noticed a rat poking its head out of the bread in the baker's stall, and decided to stop making comments like that…
I watched as the boys ran off through the food stalls to kill their own lot, and the girls ran off in the other direction towards the butchers' stalls.
I decided to instruct Selwyn to wait back for a moment whilst I tried something, and I approached the baker's stall.
I made eye contact with the baker,
He knew there were rats in his bread,
I knew there were rats in his bread.
-"One copper plea…"
He had almost gotten the chance to utter those words before a rat started crawling up his leg after a rather impressive jump in its attempt to reach the loaf he was about to hand me.
I kicked over the table, and the bread scattered everywhere. I jumped just in time to catch the rat before it moved up the man's leg towards his arm, my arm extended, blade pointed at its face.
It almost had the time to jump away before my arm reached its destination and cut through the fiend.
I felt an odd sensation, not the blood spattering over the baker's coat, which was a pleasant sensation.
The marks on my body had sensed something different about that rat. It was though there was something drawing me to it.
I skewered it easily and threw the loaf that the baker handed me firmly on the ground.
I dont have anything humorous to say about what happened after this, as truly, I think im still quite close to vomiting from the sight.
Nineteen of the creatures had shot out from under the other stalls; they were swarming the loaf and biting each other, interlocking tails to hold onto the bread.
It looked as though a overlapping star of fur and fluid was rolling across the ground for a almost a minute before Selwyn closed down the net on top of them.
He had a distinct look of horror, as we noticed the other loaves that I had so carelessly knocked off the bread stall had gathered a crowd of over a thousand of the chattering creatures. Some of them were as big as dogs. The baker shot off, after some of the more feral ones started climbing up his clothes in a swarm.
I recoiled.
I couldn't even tell where my feet were as I noticed them crawling over and scratching my legs to get to their next meal.
I almost stayed motionless on the floor before I noticed that the loaf of bread that the rats enclosed by Selwyn were chewing through was steadily dwindling, and they were nibbling at the net with their yellow teeth and small claws.
I started to stab at them, for every rat killed, my hands would get covered in a slight bit more blood, and I dont know if it was the marks underneath my clothing reacting or simply my own mental state, but as their little guts popped out of their bodies, the sight of them cannibalising each other brought me a slight sense of enjoyment.
The younger half-elves were rushing towards us, with scratches all over their legs and arms. From the unexpected heap of endless rats.
-"This cannot be natural!"
I shouted, all humour gone from my voice.
We rushed out of the market and into the alleyway.
After it was done, we returned home with twenty rats, between me and my height-stunted friend. and we had an extra spare three dog-sized ones that I had put under my mattress.
Selwyn took five, I took ten, and we had no idea what to do with the remaining five, so I let the younger ones cook them up in the stew we were eating.
Including myself, we were all looking different hues of deathly pale. Protein in any shape would do us some good, I would hope.
As we were finishing the stew, one of Cooks lackeys came in to pay us and collect the game. I had left the other rats near my mattress, and im glad I did, as once he had seen the spare rats the other half elves had managed to get, he took them as well and gave them the bog standard silver coin.
It was then that I realised.
If they were only giving five to cook, why was I giving him ten?
We all live in the same house.
The man turned to leave.
He had taken Lexi with him, for "the night shift" she was only a few years older than Selwyn, and she always returned bruised and silent.
-"its not fair big sis"
Selwyn chimed
And then I began to walk back to the market.
An hour-long rampage of my own anger, mixed with rodent guts, ensued, and I ended up running out of breath and collapsing next to a nearby stall.
They sold filthy-looking salt, sawdust-infused spices, and vinegar, which, when I shook it, looked as though it also had sawdust or some other filler inside of it. When I asked about it, the shopkeeper simply looked at me like I had two heads and told me not to worry about it.
An idea popped into my head, I used the silver to buy some vinegar from that stall and bought a sewing needle and lots of thread from the other stall.
Rushing back to the house. I decided to wake up Selwyn and Katarina for some assistance in my new venture.
I darted across the house and pulled out dust and the fresh carcasses from underneath my mattress.
I set up a line. I would skin them, Selwyn would soak their tiny hides in vinegar, and Kataline would scrub off the flesh from their coats and leave them to dry next to the stove.
-"If they're going to con us, then we can do it back can we not?"
??:April 20th: Kargos Capital
The dark room was freezing; the moonlight slid across the room, resting across the elven girl's legs, adding a cold embrace to her misery.
Cook drew ragged breaths as he gazed at what was inside the cabinet.
-" Sorry, sweetheart, we need more than usual now that we have to accommodate our premum clients... as Regnald was sayin."
He moved swiftly towards her with a strange-looking device. To the elven girl, it could only be described as a device of demonic nature made manifest.
It had a copper point and appeared to have some sort of animal bladder attached to the back end.
-"Regnald told me the demons were paying twice as much for elves' blood as the next buyer, and they'd even provide the tools!"
Cook rammed the point deep inside her leg, her body let out a spray of crimson that washed across Cook's face before it subsided. and he'd stolen far too much blood for the girl's body to handle.
She looked pale, and her body was slouching.
-"its too much…" she said before her eyes shut.
Cook looked at her with a rather sweaty but happy grin on his face and closed and locked the door.