[Kursia Syndicate Eventline] The Penny Drops

[Xarkly 12583]

KURSIA EVENTLINE
THE PENNY DROPS

Spoiler

 

 

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The church bells had just tolled for morning sermon as Tallis made her way through Helena, her heeled shoes clacking against the icy pavement.

 

Winter gripped the city. The air was frigid, her breath came out in misty plumes, and the walls and balustrades of the metropolis had a pale, glimmer glaze from frost. While others made their way about quickly to evade the cold, Tallis rather enjoyed it. She found wintertime to be soothing; she much preferred the refreshing bite of the cold on her skin than the sweltering heats of summer. She could not tolerate the heat, and could barely think in it. Winter, though, never let her forget she was alive, awake and focused. The sharp chill did not allow it. She always found that oddly sobering. She much preferred wearing her winter dresses and hat too, but that was largely besides the point.

 

“Vy am still niet sure this is a good idea,” Yuri rumbled at her side. Ironically, the hulking Raevir did not share Tallis’ fondness for the sobriety of winter. He shadowed behind her, his large stride slowed to match hers, his head shaved as bald as an egg and his small eyes focused on the road ahead. Yuri was the kind of man that others were wary of in a fight, but otherwise dismissed as a dim-witted northman. That facade was one of the main reasons Tallis kept him around as her trusted henchman. Another, albeit small, was that he cleaned up quite nicely in his woollen overcoat and cloak.

 

“I do not require a reminder,” Tallis told him curtly, but quietly. The cold was fierce this morning, but that had not stopped people from thronging the streets. Porters bustled back and forth with barrows, sacks and crates, merchants foolish enough not to have hired such porters waited impatiently for a path to clear for their horses and wagons, and folks of all classes and professions wrapped themselves in cloaks and coats and made a brisk a pace as possible through the streets. Though the streets remained busy, Tallis did think that the din of chatter, barely audible over the tolling of the church bells, was quieter than the warmer months of the years.

 

Yuri only grunted as the pair of them continued to wind their way through the frosted city. Tallis admitted to herself that Yuri did have a point; she herself really did not need to be out this morning, going to do what she was doing, but curiosity had gotten the better of her, and she wished to see the situation with her own eyes. The traffic quietened a little as they made their way into the districts tucked away from the thoroughfare, though she had to watch her step carefully on these streets where the pavement had not been gritted for horses and boots. Yuri even had the nerve to offer her an arm when they descended a flight of steps.

 

When they finally reached the Silver Jubilee Fountain, Tallis grimaced to see the commotion near the back of the fountain, where a cluster of civilians had gathered near a guardsman, their conversation marked by columns of misty breath. Another pair of guards – one of them a woman – had climbed down into the fountain, and appeared to be examining something at its edge. Swallowing a curse, Tallis took a moment to compose herself, straightened her feather cap, and strode towards the first guardsman, Yuri at her heels.

 

“ … to be concerned about,” the guardsman, a young fellow whose bulbous nose was red from the cold, was saying as she approached.

 

“Oh, heavens, officer,” Tallis broke out in her best sweetly, innocent voice. “Has something happened?”

 

“As I was saying, ma’am,” the guardsman began, sounding a touch impatient with his country accent, “there is nothing to be concerned with, but -”

 

“Oh, my,” she exclaimed as she eyed the other guardsmen studying the fountain, which had a splatter of phlegm-like blood on its otherwise white surface. “Has there been an attack? A murder?” As intended, her remarks stirred up murmurs of concern from the other civilians who were peering over at the fountain with clueless eyes.

 

“No, no, not a murder,” the guardsman said hastily, and then reluctantly added, “It was just a poor sod on some kind of drug. Ended up killing him.”

 

“A drug!?” Tallis pressed, adding more dramatic fluster to his voice, stirring more of a reaction from those gathered.

 

“Some kind of nasty black narcotic. Nothing good folk like you lot need to concern yourself with. The Constabulary have it well in hand," the guardsman insisted, but the watching civilians seemed far from convinced. They began to disperse, whispering urgently to one another. Tallis stepped back with them, leaving the guardsman looking none too pleased with himself.

 

Yuri waited until the pair of them had retreated in a solitary side street, the paving stones gleaming with frost, before speaking. “Well?”

 

“As we expected,” Tallis said through grit teeth.

 

That was the third death from a drug overdose in the city that week, and Tallis had received a letter from her people in Haense yesterday morning to confirm that there had been three deaths in New Reza, too – also drug overdoses. This latest dunce to die, however, seemed to have been foolish enough to have residue of Blacksap on him. Blacksap was, of course, her product. The psychadelic drug had only been in production for a few months now, but already it had raked Tallis and her associates a fortune in a time where armies were strained from the Inferi invasion, and that same invasion had driven countless soldiers to unscrupulous methods to ward off their trauma. Their operation had been airtight; production and distribution had been both successful and discreet – up until now, at least. Now, Tallis had six bodies on her hand from the drug – three in Haense and three in Helena – that were going to make law enforcement start asking questions.

 

“A bad batch,” she muttered. “That has to be it.” The Blacksap drug had been in circulation for nearly three months now, at first targetting paupers and the downtrodden before they had almost exclusively began to sell to soldiers traumatised from the Inferi war, and there had been no issues. The six sudden deaths had to be attributed to a bad batch of Blacksap. “I want you to visit the breweries, Yuri, both here and in Haense. And I want you to make it clear that this cannot happen again.”

 

The Raev grunted his agreement. “Da, of course. Vy will go at once. But what of our, ah, current situation?”

 

“With luck, it won’t amount to much.”

 

“Hmph. And without luck?”

 

Sucking in a breath of frozen air, Tallis smiled softly. No, this was not something to get flustered about. Her strategy, her organizations, and her plans were built far sturdier than to be shaken by a little mishap like this. She did not get where she was today by depending on luck; she had bested the odds far more times than they had been on her side. She was not so naive to think that her operations would always evade the attention of the law, but rather she had more than one plan ready to spring to evade it, and succeed in doing so where others had failed.

 

Her network – the Kursia – was built on far stronger foundations than syndicates of the past.

 

“Without luck, we’ll burn every loose end, and bury anyone who follows the smoke.”