Editing The Princess of Commorragh (section)

==Chapter Two==

“Moving on to item number twelve, we have an orphan from a recent raid on Piolea…”

A small child, perhaps twelve years by Mon’keigh standards, was prodded onto the small, raised dais. Surrounded by a throng of eager-looking Parched on all sides, he quickly erupted into tears. 

“No! Leave me alone! I want Mommy! I want Mommy!”

“As you can see, the mon’keigh’s anguish is simply delectable. Perfect for your personal use or even as a gift. We shall start the bidding at…”

''Where is he…'' wondered Reri as she scanned the crowd of her decrepit kin. For a nightmarish surgeon of the damned, Haemonculus Bryth was proving hard to nail down. Reri’s information web had brought her here, to this auction of realspace raid goods, where Bryth was known to lurk. That fact alone was already setting off alarms in her head. Any self-respecting haemonculi rarely left their laboratories within The Core, much less performed the menial task of slave-fodder gathering themselves. It reeked of a new Lord of Pain trying to establish a foothold, of one that was growing desperate, or perhaps of both. None of the cases helped explain why Vect was interested in this individual. Or, for that matter, what Bryth might have that Vect wanted. 

Though, that was the nature of Vect’s tasks, Reri supposed. In each instance, she had been given a name and the number of items she was expected to collect from them. In some cases, the owner had already been informed of Vect’s interest and a deal struck behind the scenes. Those were the simple milk-runs, a glorified delivery service that, for some reason lost on Reri, could not be trusted to Scourge or countless other qualified individuals. Boring, but relatively safe. The real excitement came when her quarry made an effort to conceal the prize, or, at least, made the trip down into the festering cesspool that was the Lower City worth the effort. 

Lately, however, someone or something had gotten wind of Vect’s machinations. The Princess was used to being constantly tailed, but there was something far more sinister lurking in her shadows as of late. Mercenaries from the Null City, gangs of Hellions, and Incubi, to name a few. It all pointed to a plot much larger than herself, and made her current task all the more worrisome.

“Do I hear fifty? Fifty? Ladies and Gentleman, this child is from a nobleborn home, perfect for corruption and… Fifty from the man in blue. Do I hear sixty?”

''There, hovering at the edge of the crowd. He’s alone. No Wrack bodyguards.''

“Sixty going once… going twice… A splinter pistol aimed at my head from the woman in green. Do I hear a shardcarbine? ...A shardcarbine from the man in blue.”

“I WANT MY MOMMY!”

As the assemblage of wretches began to whip themselves into a hellacious standoff, Reri slipped from her vantage point and up behind the Haemonculi. Before he could react, she had planted a blade across his throat and against his back. 

“Scream, and you will be the first food these pathetic excuses of flesh will taste. Do you understand?”

A nod. Good. That made things easier. Still, she had to act fast, before the crowd’s tension broke and a blood orgy erupted. 

“You have something that you should have never had in the first place. You’re going to take me to it. Now.”

The man’s head twisted, just enough to allow him to see who his abductor was. He smiled. “How adorrrable, it’s The Prrrrincess. Which means you’rrre after ''that''...”

A flash, followed by a ripple of reactionary gunfire. Reflexively, Reri pulled the haemonculi out of harm’s way. The man’s sparse frame offered little resistance, but she still had to wrestle to keep him from escaping. 

“My patience runs thin, and your time short. Where is it?”

“You arrrrre too late, Prrrrincess… I’ve alrrrready sold it to someone…” His chuckle was cut short as the wych-blade began to slice into his neck. 

“Who? Answer quickly. I give you about twenty seconds before you’re unable to speak, and another ten beyond that before the Parched start to tear you apart.”

“How darrre…!” 

The dagger went deeper in response. “Who?”

“Some Mon’keigh, paid in Arrrcheotech…”

“Hmph. So you were just desperate, then. Pathetic. You don’t deserve the privilege of calling yourself Eldarith Ynneas.”

Twirling on her heels, Reri strode away from the cacophony of battle. Bryth’s head fell from his neck a moment later, much to the delight of the nearest Parched. Such self-contained riots were commonplace around auction-sites, and were the perfect means of disposing a body in a way that prevented any competent haemonculi from reviving them. After all, it was rather hard to piece back together a soul, much less a body, when it was torn apart and consumed by scores of desperately hungry bottom-feeders.

''A Mon’keigh, huh? Maybe today won’t be boring after all…''