# Lenc (Updated December 25, 2008)



## Altalazar (Dec 26, 2008)

Book I

Lenc – Chapter One – Star of the Show

	The crowd was starting to get restless.  Sasserinian natives are not known for their patience.  It had already been quite a long time since the undersheriff announced that the “festivities” would soon begin.  A few in the crowd were even considering leaving.  While they did not particularly want to miss the show, they knew they would soon have the chance to see another.  The authorities had no trouble finding suitable candidates for execution on a regular basis.  
	Horrace looked out at the crowd gathered before him.  He had never seen so many people pay attention to him at one time.  Were he not about to be executed by hanging, he might have even enjoyed the attention.  As it was, the ropes at his wrists itched, as did the muddy, dirty clothes that had been stuck to his back ever since he was first thrown into the holding pen after being caught stealing for the third time in the Noble district.  Perhaps he should have been more cautious.  But as his uncle used to tell him when he’d ask him why he would steal from the nobility, his only reply made perfect sense.  “That’s where the gold is.”  
	Horrace scanned the crowd again, to see if there was anyone he knew out there.  His eyes were caked with tears, sweat, and many layers of dirt from the dungeon that he had been lying in for the past week before his sentence.  He did not see anyone, but then, he never could see very well past his arms.  That was probably why he didn’t see the town watch coming toward him until it was too late to run.  
	With the length of the delay, Horrace started to wonder if maybe, hope against hope, his execution might be postponed.  He hadn’t seen the executioner since they brought him up to the platform.  His hands itched.  He tried to scratch his palm as best he could.  With his hands tied behind his back, he had trouble moving his fingers where he wanted them.  His neck itched, too, where the noose was tied around him.  He closed his eyes for a moment.  
	“And now we carry out the sentence!” cried the Master of the Ropes.  Horrace tried to pretend it was a dream.  
“Horrace Welthorp, better known to the scum of the wharf as Horrace the Whelp, you have been found guilty by your betters and, for your third offense, you have been sentenced to death.  Have you any last words?”  
	Horrace tried to think of what useful thing he might have to say.  Before he could form the words on his lips, he felt the platform fall away beneath him, and soon he was hanging by his neck.  For a moment, he thought he was in the afterlife, as everything went white, then red, but then he saw that he was still dangling by his neck, several feet off of the ground, slowly spinning.  The crowd, cheering at first, was now gasping.  He was still alive, his neck stretching but not snapping.  It was a miracle!  Horrace silently thanked all of the gods he could think of.  He must have been thanking them aloud as the crowd could hear his mumbling references to the divine and began to take this as a sign.  
	Horrace saw someone coming toward him out of the crowd.  The face looked familiar, but it was hard to tell since the blood was rushing into his eyeballs with each swing of the rope.  “My salvation…” were the last words Horrace ever uttered as he felt the man jump up and grab onto his legs, pulling him down sharply and finally snapping Horrace’s neck.  

	Lenc – Chapter Two – Fulfilling a Need

	Lenc was walking through the crowd on the way to the market.  He had a full load of crops to sell.  His fields had done well this year.  His father would be proud, had he lived.  Though Lenc did not think of his father.  He did not really think of anything in the past.  He would always look forward, to the next row of crops to be cut; to the next day of market to be haggled.  Lenk tended to think just of what lay right in front of him.  Whatever lay in front of him, be it crops or market, would soon be harvested for his needs.  
	Lenc was dressed in dirty leathers, leathers which looked to have never been clean or new.  They almost seemed a part of him.  His scythe was likewise dirty and even rusty, though he always managed to keep its edge sharp for the crops.  He walked with it in a steady and easy manner.  It was more of a dancing partner than an implement, gliding along beside him.  He moved with a fluid grace in his step, making the harvesting of crops look like some sophisticated, noble ballet as he would run up and down the rows of his fields, gathering his bounty for market.  
	Lenc was not interested in watching the execution.  He would have gone right on by had he not heard the gasps of the crowd as Horrace hung writhing beneath the platform, refusing to give up his life as duly ordered.  
	Lenc took a short turn and headed toward the platform.  He jumped up and grabbed onto Horrace’s legs, and then let himself fall.  There was the sound of bone snapping, and then there was silence.  Horrace hung limply from the rope.  As Lenc dropped down to the ground and walked away, the crowd watching his every move, three words escaped from his generally silent lips.  
	“He needed killin’.”  


	Lenc – Chapter Three – Lenc Is Summoned

	A few days later, Lenc was on his way from the market when a messenger ran up to him.  Not used to being chased by messengers, Lenc at first ignored him, but finally stopped when he heard his name.  The messenger handed him a note.  Apparently one noble lady of the Vanderborn Manor wished to hire him for something.  Lenc could use extra money for his harvest.  His scythe always needed sharpening.  Lenc thought it over a moment, then wrote “Lenc” on the piece of paper and put a checkmark next to his name and gave the note back to the messenger.  Lenc then went back on his way. 

	That evening, Lenc arrived at Vanderborn Manor, a towering, gothic three-story house of stone in the Noble district.  He was the last to arrive.  Three others had also been summoned.  Beru, a half-elf piper Lenc now recalled seeing at the execution.  He must have tossed her a copper as he left the platform, his killin’ done.  She wore a feathered hat and had short, light-brown hair.  
	Also there was Dawn, a druid, her gills just barely visible, making her a Mer.  Someone other than Lenc might have wondered if she were related to the other Mer there, a noble named Alure wearing an explorers outfit and the trappings of a sorcerer.  Lenc wondered nothing.  
	Lenc introduced himself to the others in the room, being more talkative than usual.  
	“Lenc,” said Lenc, as he shook each hand in turn, before standing in the corner and waiting for further instructions.  
	Before those instructions were forthcoming, some rather fancy-looking types came in and through.  A dangerous half-elf, a speared dwarf, an attractive, haughty woman in dark purple robes, and a tall and handsome man wearing a polished breastplate.  He looked everyone over, and said:
	“Hmmm, you must be the help Lavinia brought in to do the chores.  Best of luck to ya!”
	Lenc wondered if he needed killin’.

	They were soon brought into a cozy dining hall.  An attractive woman in a long, flowing blue dress introduced herself as Lavinia.  
	Lavinia explained that her family fortune was at risk.  There were a great deal of debts to be paid and they had not been covered by her parents before they died.  There may be wealth to cover them in the family vault, but she was unsure if she could retrieve it.  Another problem was a ship that she had full of cargo that was hers by right but which was being held despite the tariffs payment.  We were to find this ship and liberate it for her.  The ship was called the Blue Nixie.  
	We were offered 200 gold each, a tidy sum, almost enough to fully sharpen Lenc’s scythe.  But first came dinner.
	Lavinia showed us a portrait of her brother and explained that she had not seen him in some time.  
	Before dinner, Beru played a fine tune on her pipes and Lenc danced his dance of the fields, impressing all.  The dust flew off of him almost as fast as his feet moved to the rhythm.  
	After the dance, Lenc made small talk with Alure.  
	“Lenc,” said Lenc.  
	“Enough talking!” said Alure.  
	Beru sighed and tried to lengthen the conversation, much to Alure’s annoyance.  “What skills do you bring to the table, Lenc?”  
	“I can kill,” said Lenc.  Lenc then assumed the conversation was over and headed to the table to eat.  
	Beru made a few abortive attempts to plan the assault on the Blue Nixie.  Lenc was ready to go by the second word out of her mouth.  Dawn thought the plan was set by the third syllable.  Alure was already out of the door.  Beru’s sigh could be heard echoing down the waterfront.  

	Lenc – Chapter Four – The Blue Nixie

	The Blue Nixie was not at the docks, but was instead moored to float about 100 feet away from the pier’s end.  This might have presented a problem with the plan, had there been one.  As it was, Dawn jumped into the water and transformed into a crocodile, Alure dove in as herself, and Lenc and Beru took a dinghy from the dock and started to row to the Blue Nixie until the crocodile started to push them.  
	Alure approached the starboard side of the ship at about the midway point, splashing and distracting the three thugs standing on the deck.  Dawn, Beru, and Lenc approached the stern and attempted to climb the ropes up the side of the ship.  The slickness of the ropes led all three to fall back into the water just before they reached the deck.  
	Fortunately for all three, they were able to climb it again and make it to the deck before the thugs reached the stern to investigate the splash.  

	Lenc saw the thugs running toward him.  He then pictured the deck as if it were his field.  He ran down the stairs toward the middle of the ship, dancing along back and forth with each step, until he finally swung his scythe around in a graceful arc that ended four feet to the left of a thug’s neck.  Given that the arc began four feet to the right of the thug’s neck, the thug’s head was sliced clean off, hitting the deck with a wet “thud” just before the thug’s lifeless body joined it.  
	“He needed killin’” was heard whispered from Lenc’s lips as he turned toward the other thug on the stern side of the ship.  

	Alure was on deck by now, sending small bolts of blue electricity toward the other thugs as they poured out onto the deck.  Dawn was also on deck, though to the thugs she looked more like a crocodile than a mer.  She growled and a thug turned and ran, jumping off the port side and into the water.  Alure followed close behind.  The thug took one last breath before Alure grabbed his ankle and pulled him down deep into the water.
	Lenc decapitated two more thugs before what appeared to be the leader of the thugs came out on deck, along with two thuggish women.  
	“What’s going on out here,” the lead thug asked of the mostly-decapitated thugs out on deck.  
	Lenc replied, “They needed killin’.”  
	Lenc then charged him, pausing to slice off another head before sending his scythe into the torso of the leader.  The leader tried to swing his own blade at Lenc as he ran by, but Lenc deftly danced aside, and the lead thug’s blade only found air.  
	The lead thug, smarter than he looked, shouted his surrender.  Lenc held his scythe to the leader’s neck menacingly and looked up at the woman-thug standing on the bow.  Despite this, the woman-thug still shot one last arrow at Beru, and so Beru sent an arrow at her, taking her down.  
	“No!  You bastards!  I was surrendering!”
	Lenc shrugged.  “She needed killin’,” he said by way of explanation, shrugging his shoulders both toward the woman-thug and Beru, though she they were at opposite sides of the ship.  
	“Burn them all!” were the leader-thug’s last words before Lenc harvested his head.  

	Lenc – Chapter Five – Below Decks

	Lenc was busy searching the captain’s quarters when he heard Beru shout from below deck, “Lenc, get down here.”  Lenc dropped what he was holding and ran to the opposite side of the ship, to the stairs leading down.  
	Below decks there were many cages filled with many strange and exotic creatures.  Any one of them would have been utterly fascinating to study.  But to Lenc, they were all just a multi-colored blur on his way to the source of the shout.  In the forward part of the hold, there was a strange, hideous creature that was slowly killing the rest of Lenc’s boarding party.  Apparently, from the shouts he heard, this aberration needed killin’.
	Once harvested, they took stock of the ship.  The thugs were all dead, including two who had jumped overboard into the waiting hands of Alure.  
	There were a few minor trinkets aboard, but it seemed that the cargo was the most valuable treasure to be found.  And after the druid was finished with it, the most valuable part of the cargo remaining was a bunch of empty cages, as exotic animals of all kinds were let loose upon the bay.  
	Despite this, Lavinia was true to her word and paid them each 200 gold.  Pleased at their efforts and results, she then offered them another job and a permanent retainer of 100 gold per month.  They accepted.  

Book II

	Lenc – Chapter Six – Family Crypt

	Lenc, Dawn, Alure, and Beru took a ferry to High Market, courtesy of Lady Lavinia Venderborn.  	The ferry deposited them at the base of Castle Terakniam, where a snooty clerk verified the Lady’s identiy before allowing them all to head down to her family’s vault.  
	The vault itself was an impressive work of art.  “Seeker’s Lodge,” commented Beru, upon seeing some of the bas relief.  The center of the main room was domed with an eight-pointed star at its apex.  There was also an iron serpent that attacked until Lavinia showed it her family’s ring.  
	What really took the bulk of the time in the crypt was deciphering the meaning of a poem in a hidden chamber that described how to rotate a pillar so as to open up the treasure vault.  Lenc paid little attention to this.  It apparently involved clockwise and counter-clockwise turns corresponding to sunrise and sunset in the poem, with the number of notches set by the number of eyes for each creature in the poem.  
	In the end, it led to opening a room with 20 chests, almost all of which were basically empty, save one with a few thousand in gold and gems.  Lavinia now could finally pay her bills, starting with the first month’s pay for her new hirelings.  

	Lenc – Chapter Seven – Searching for Brother

	Lavinia’s next task for her hirelings was finding her brother.  She had not seen him in a month.  All she knew was that he had often been seen in the Azure district.  She said he had fallen in with a bad crowd.  
	Alure tried to find where he was by standing up in taverns and asking loudly where he was, offering a gold to any who would tell him.  She won many dirty looks, but little in the way of information.  
	Asking around the district, Beru discovered that Lavinia’s brother had been living with a woman in the district, Brissa Santos, an artist with her fair share of brushes with the law.  He had also been seen with Pinkus, a known smuggler, given to drunken binges and with a violent temper.  
	They got close on his trail when they visited a boat shop owned by a dwarf named Panchi.  He rented them a boat and asked that they find the boat Pinkus took, as it had not been returned.  
	Going out upon the water, they went to the last known location for the pair, Parrot Island.  

	Lenc – Chapter Eight – Parrot Island

	Parrot Island was nothing more than a large slab of a rock out in the bay, not far from Panchi’s shop.  There was really only one approach from the water, and that was to a beach on the east side of the islet.  
	The group arrived on the island and then headed inland, on the only visible trail.  It ended at a small slab of rock next to a shaft heading down.  Seeing no other approach, the group climbed down the shaft.  Only then did Lavinia’s brother show his face, at the top of the hole.  
	The last thing they heard before he sealed the top with the heavy rock was, “Say hi to Pinkus for me!”  
	“He –definitely- needs killin’,” said Linc as the last drop of sunlight was cut off by the slab.  
	With nowhere else to go, they continued down the shaft and then into a winding passage.  

	The hallway went two ways.  Travelling south first, they found a room with a large pool of water and many doors.  The Mer wondered if they could swim out that way and find some way back into the bay.  Before that question could be answered, large crabs came out of the water and attacked them.  
	Lenc deftly sliced most of them to pieces as the others formed a perimeter to keep them from totally surrounding the group.  When they had all died or fled, they discovered a body floating in the water.  The body had a masterwork silver dagger.  It was not Pinkus.  
	There were many more doors to explore.  There were also only a few hours of light left in Alure’s magic.  The party headed onward.


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