"Mother, how good are you at forging signatures?"

"I'll be back in the morning, Penny. I have some business to tend to, but I'll bring you something for breakfast. I love you."


My Lord Ysdale,

I was recently out hunting when I came across something that belongs to you - or rather, someone. If you would deign to meet me halfway, I will return your property to you as soon as I am able. She has been a considerable nuisance, but I have managed to quell her struggling with several heavily armoured guards.
You will be able to find my men and your property at the Golden Fleece Inn just on the border of Zsongrill and Dulfwyn. If you could bring this letter with you as proof of your identity for them, that would be a great help.

- Lord Tremere Varden


As it happened, the Golden Fleece Inn had been abandoned and ransacked some years previous to its present use. It stood just a little ways off the road that ran through a small forest at the eastern border of Zsongrill.

And Lord Tremere Varden, as it just so happened, had passed away in his geriatric sleep some six months ago.

It will be no surprise to the reader, then, that he wasn't waiting with Ysdale's 'property' within the hollow and creaking shell of the forgotten inn. In his place, the form of General William Archer Vorserkeine-Alexston was sat atop the bar, with his elbows on his knees and his gloves interlaced with one another. And he was simply waiting. Very, very patiently.

Eventually, the very perplexed Lord of Zsongrill stumbled through the door with his armoured escort behind him.

His protection was short-lived. The moment they walked through the door, two of Sarmagh's officers were on them, and given the surprise tactic, they didn't stand a moment's chance.

"What the devil!" Ysdale bellowed as he cringed away from the two dark figures, who seemed perfectly content to let him live for the time being. "Explain yourselves! Where is Lord Varden?"

"He isn't coming," the General replied, surprisingly calmly. "And neither is Cordelia."

"Who the fuckfluff are you, then? If this is some sort of joke-"

"I assure you, my Lord," William answered, his boots making heavy noises against the barseats as he descended. "I am not laughing."

Those boots continued to thunk as they crossed over the floorboards. They brought the towering form of Sarmagh's General to stand chest to chest (though in reality, the term was likely more lower-ribs-to-man-tits). Leather creaked as William looked down directly at the Lord whose hands had touched his intended in such a particularly displeasing fashion.

"Who are you?" Ysdale demanded, albeit shakily.

"My name is William Alexston. I'm sure you've heard of me before."

Ysdale went pale in the dark.

"Whatever that little bitch told you-"

"Do you make a habit of only starting fights with women who are a full head shorter than you?" the General enquired, several sniggers coming from the General direction of the two officers present.

"She disobeyed me."

"Actually," William answered. "She obeyed me. Which makes your assault on her a direct challenge to my authority. You have promptly shat all over my command, sir. I do not like people shitting on my commands. Or beating my women."

There was a long, flapping silence filled with Ysdale trying to put his words in word places.

"That cunt is mine, not yours. Mine. I'll have it." Wrong words, wrong place.

"So," the General carried on like he'd not been listening as he gestured to his stomach. "Challenge me, not a woman. Hit me like you hit her."

Ysdale shrank back from him, but found that he only got more William in his face.

"I said hit me, like you hit her."

Silence. Flapping.

Thunk.

Ysdale's fist met with the leather over the General's stomach, and both stood there like some medieval parody of a cartoon in which the little guy punches the big guy - to no effect.

A moment later, he was on the floor, spitting his teeth onto the floorboards that stank of tar and muttering curses as he scrambled back to his feet.

And so it began.

Ribs cracked, one after the other. Pinned to a wall, he struggled to breath when fists repeatedly smacked into his ribcage. A moment later, his head met with the wall he'd been leaning against. A moment after that, his wrist was wedged into the door jamb, and the door was rammed shut so hard that it shattered most of his forearm. After that, the same happened again, to his other arm.

The officers stood, one of them picking something out of his teeth, and the other polishing an old mirror with the cuff of his sleeve.

Screams came. One after another, the quiet between them filled with grunts and heavy breathing and scrambling.

Eventually, William got irritated with his scrambling. Two firm, wet cracks sounded as his boots mashed in the bone connecting kneecaps to shin bones, and his fits met with three parts of Ysdale's spine to crack, but not break, the vertebrae.

His hand tugged Ysdale up by the hair, and he leaned in to talk to him in an enraged mock-conspiratorial whisper. "You see these two Corporals," he hissed. "I brought them with me for a specific reason. They don't like wet cunts. They don't even like dry cunts. In fact, they're quite fond of a little bit of buggery on the weekend, and perhaps a touch of throatfucking when the moon wanes. It's your lucky day - the moon is waning on a weekend."

That particular scream was louder than the others, and far more horrified. The fortune of that particular headache inducing sound, however, was that relatively soon it turned into a muffled, choking gurgle.

The final fate of Lord Ysdale had been decided long before he'd arrived, and several paving slabs in the cellar had been pulled up, and the earth beneath removed for a good eight feet. Three barrels full of ale so bad even William wouldn't drink it had been placed nearby.

They tossed him into it long after he'd done struggling. He began yelling anew, until he was sure his throat was going to be more ruined than it was already. He cried. And he begged, and he scrambled in the air with broken limbs and snapped fingers. He carried on screaming even as dirt fell onto his face and filled his mouth. He became madly hysterical when each of those barrels were dropped on him.

Eventually, they couldn't hear him screaming underneath the dirt and flagstones. Eventually, the inn was as silent as the grave beneath it.

I'll take care of it.