Rothester

As a result of the constant threat from the Egwater gangs, Ringleader finally decided to do something definitive. At first, they thought that the gangs would quit after their first few robbery attempts failed. Frustratingly, they keep chasing after the STC’s prize, proving themselves to be committed. Ken, on his part, refused cooperation with one of the gangs and forced the team to come up with their own solution.

Early the next day, in one of the nearby neighborhoods, the team is inside Matt’s home, which is a downgrade from Ken’s. However, it doesn’t matter because Matt is perfectly content with the smaller house as he personally thinks a bigger one is too much of a hassle to deal with. All members separately own their own home in Efielge, but they are all near enough to walk between them in minutes. The reason they did this is, of course, to portray the image that they only knew each other through a common line of work. It would simply be too suspicious have they lived together in the same building.

The five of them surround a table in Matt’s kitchen which is full of hardware. Next to a large sack full of metallic parts, Matt and Cayde assemble HK416 rifles for their upcoming operation while Ken, Jax, and Reed load magazines. Meanwhile, they all talk about strategy.

To put it simply, they have had enough of all the harassment and plan to attack one of the gangs to serve as an example to the rest. From all the information they compiled, they determine that the Bourkee gang is one of the most dominant gangs in Egwater. Ringleader have now switched from defense to offense, and the Bourkee gang is their target.

“So, how are we going to do this?” Reed asks.

“I say we walk right in through the front door and start blasting,” Cayde replies.

“A drive-by isn’t going to be enough,” Matt argues. “If we want to send a message, we’ll have to take out the gang leader.”

“So we kill Greysen Bourkee. Great. But do we even know if he will be in ‘The Siren’?” Jax comments.

“He should,” Ken adds. “Before Cayde and I were kicked out when we asked around, the guards hinted that he was there, and there are a lot of them. Also, the building is big enough to have some sort of office space somewhere. Besides, The Siren is the only property we know is owned by the Bourkee gang, so we don’t really have many places to choose.”

“What about the layout?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t get a good look.”

“Damn,” Matt grunts.

“I have an idea,” Reed says. “One of us should pose as a customer instead of forcing our way through. If you can sneak around as a customer, you might get lucky and find him. Pop him if you do. Otherwise, if you can’t get to him or don’t know, the rest of us will raid the place as a last resort.”

“That’s as good a plan as we will come up with, I think.”

“I’ll pose as the customer.” Ken raises his hand.

“You sure?” Matt asks. “We don’t know what’s in there. Can’t have you hesitating.”

“I’m sure,” Ken firmly says.

“I have a dirty, worn coat you can use instead of your embroidered one and some worn trousers. Keep your waistcoat, of course. Just ditch the chain it has. If you’re too clean, they’ll suspect you. If you’re too dirty, they’ll reject you. You’ll also have to leave your rifle with us. Otherwise, they’ll see it and blow your cover.”

Once everyone agrees, they go to retrieve and put on the clothes they will wear for the mission. Ken trades his clean trench coat for a dirty and worn dark brown trench coat. After taking off some of the flashier details of his clothes, he now looks more like a member of lower-class society. The rest of the team wear darker and baggier clothes for concealment and scarves to cover their faces. Everyone, except Ken, slings their rifles over their shoulders. Each HK416 is equipped with a holographic optic, suppressor, and forward vertical grip. Cayde slings a second rifle over his other shoulder as a spare in case Ken needs one down the line

Checking to make sure that they have all their HK416s ready, Glock 19s holstered, magazines in their combat vests, knives in their sheaths, and earpieces connecting to their radios, everyone conceals everything by putting on cloaks.

Ken, waiting for everyone to finish, is collecting money into a small pouch.

“Why are you taking so much money?” Reed asks.

“Just in case. You never know who you can bribe in that place.”

.

.

A while later, the team makes their way to Egwater. While Ken has no problem traversing through the city, the rest of the team has a bit of difficulty. Though the cloaks they wear are necessary to hide their weapons and gear, they stand out slightly. Some people think they are shady people up to no good, so they try to act lost and confused. They even have to play up an act as poor beggars to the city guards so they can be let into the Egwater district.

The sun is still out and is many hours away before sunset. This, of course, is a problem for the team, but they concluded that Bourkee is more likely to be at The Siren during daytime hours rather than nighttime hours.

Time passes as they make their way through Egwater; eventually, the team is able to find The Siren and surround it from a distance. The building has the name on a large sign above the entrance and a woman’s drawn silhouette.

Scattering around the street, they each take a position to make themselves look like homeless beggars loitering around to avoid attention. With a clear line of sight, they observe how some people stand around as guards by the door who wears leather armor.

“All right, Ken, it’s time,” Matt says through the radio. “Go in and find a way to sneak deeper into the building. Find Bourkee, kill him, then get out. We’ll be outside, ready to help. If you need a distraction, we’ll make one. If you get trapped and need an extraction, we’ll go in guns blazing.”

Ken makes his way across towards the building among the crowd in the street, trying his best to imitate those around him. Walking past some of the people, he enters The Siren without being stopped by the guards. So far, so good.

Once inside, Ken takes a look around to analyze the interior. By now, he would have already been kicked out if he tried asking questions as he did before with Cayde. The inside looks like an ordinary tavern with a bar in the back, except that it is worse. It is humid, there is a strange and uncomfortable smell in the air, and the patrons are louder and rowdier. At least it is fairly lit up with candles and oil lamps. In addition, there is also a good number of women roaming around and interacting with the drunken men. Many of whom wear revealing clothes.

Ken walks towards the bar to talk with the bartender while ignoring the taunts thrown at him by the drunkards.

“Hello, nice place you got here.” Ken tries to conversate.

The bartender is a mean-looking burly man who is cleaning various cups and glasses. He doesn’t respond to Ken and instead stares at him with annoyance.

“Right… What does this place offer other than getting drunk?”

The bartender grunts angrily before speaking in a deep and threatening voice. “We have rooms for rent upstairs for five pence a night or a pence per hour if paired with the special service.”

Ken gets near-instantly confused when the bartender gave two different prices to rent a room and wonders what the special service is, but it doesn’t take long to find out.

“With the special service, it will cost you between four and twenty-four pence depending on the girl.”

Ken quickly connects the dots and realizes that the special service is buying or renting a girl.

“This place has a brothel?”

The bartender grunts again and moves his sight towards the crowd. Ken follows and turns around to observe the people. He quickly spots plenty of the drunk men flirting or outright molesting many of the girls. He frowns and is internally disgusted. He hadn’t realized before that The Siren dealt with prostitution and this fact only bothers him greatly.

“I’m going to take a look around and find one I like,” Ken lies.

Ken leaves the bar and walks around pretending to take an interest in the girls. In reality, Ken is looking for a way to go upstairs. In one corner of the large room, Ken sees the stairs and slowly makes his way towards them while still pretending to ogle the girls.

Once he gets near the stairs, Ken tries to spot the bartender, guards, or anyone else who can cause him problems. When he is sure no one is looking, Ken inconspicuously climbs the stairs to the next floor.

On the next floor, Ken enters another open area. It looks like another area for customers and girls to mingle in, except this one is not as crowded. There is another bar on one side, but no bartender is there. There are several pairs of men and women together, but many lonely women are also lazing about. In addition, a few men are wearing the same leather armor as the guards outside, who casually loiter around in boredom. Seeing nothing helpful on this floor, Ken continues up onto the next floor.

As Ken began climbing the stairs, he hears someone yell in his direction. “Hey! You can’t go up there without buying a girl!”

Ken grows nervous and continues to climb the stairs at a faster pace. He doesn’t want to stop for anything and ignores the man. He hopes the guy would let him go, but it doesn’t seem that way.

“Stop! What do you think yer are doing? Come back here!”

On the third floor, Ken enters another area, but this one has many hallways and is mostly free from people. The stairs end on that floor, but Ken knows that another floor is still left and has to find the next set of stairs.

“Curse this bastard. If he won’t follow the rules, I’ll beat it into him.”

Ken hears the guard’s footsteps as he mutters to himself and climbs the stairs after him. Feeling the heat, Ken quickly picks a hallway and jogs towards it in an attempt to lose the guy following him.

Ken reaches into his shirt as he turns around a corner. He grabs onto the earpiece he has hidden under his shirt, puts it into his ear, and presses on the microphone to talk with his team.

“I’m inside. Do you guys hear me?” Ken whispers into the microphone as he glances behind him to make sure the guard didn’t find him.

“We hear you, Ken. What do you see in there?”

“Turned out this place has a fucking brothel here. There’s a lot of young women being bought.”

“That’s horrible.”

Ken walks past a series of doors of which are probably the rooms that are for rent. Occasionally, Ken walks past rooms in which the occupants are painfully audible. Repetitive creaking, pounding, and moaning make it clear what rooms are rented with the special service. To Ken’s dismay, some of the girls he hears through the doors sound more in pain than pleasure. While some girls sound mature enough, Ken can only pray that there aren’t any girls who are too young. It would be horrifying to think that children or young teens take part in prostitution and are among the girls Ken hears having sex or being raped in the rooms.

“This place is fucking disgusting,” Ken whispers, continuing to check over his shoulder.

One of the doors to a room opens, making Ken quickly take out the earpiece and hide it under his shirt again. Who comes out is an older man with a girl far too young to be with someone like him. Both of them breathe heavily and are sweating. While the older man has a face of satisfaction and pleasure, the girl’s face is more neutral and tired. The pair walks right past Ken as if nothing happened, and Ken gets hit in the face with a musky stench that originates from them.

At some point, Ken reaches another open area that looks more like a rest or recreation area with chairs and tables, but it is empty. However, he can still hear doors opening and closing or voices of satisfied men walking through the halls behind him.

Doors are on either side of the space, but they don’t look like doors to any large rooms. They could be hiding the stairs to the next floor or be hiding something else, so Ken decides to check them out of curiosity. He tries to open one of the doors but only finds a small and empty closet. The next door he opens reveals a bunch of random junk that has no use.

Ken goes to the other side to open another door but is woefully unprepared for what he is about to encounter. Once he opens the door, he finds a small and mostly empty room. In the corner of the room is a person, a woman huddled into a ball on the ground.

Noticing his entrance, the woman fearfully glances at Ken, and her eyes widen in absolute shock. They both lock eyes, and Ken immediately recognizes the light grey eyes he stares into. This is Athela, the girl Ken gave food to days ago.

“It’s you…” Ken mutters in surprise.

Athela looks up at Ken and also recognizes him as the only person who has ever helped her.

Ever since their first encounter, Athela has been trying to find a way to escape her torture. She was emotionally destroyed and detached when she was forced to kill four people, but Ken’s kindness momentarily brought her to her senses. Hopeful that there might still be kindness in the world, Athela set out to find it. She has resolved herself to leave Efielge and leave Scorcia to create a new life somewhere else, far away from where her life was destroyed. But even still, she continues to struggle and is constantly on the verge of giving up as people continue to treat her like trash. She feared that Ken’s kindness was just a fluke that she would never experience again. In her quest to scrape up enough money for a trip out of Scorcia, she was jumped by a group of kidnappers. The sudden attack took her completely off guard, and she was apprehended before she could fight back. Now, those kidnappers gave her over to the Bourkee gang, who took her into work as a prostitute. For better or for worse, their gang leader saw her and took an interest in her. She was spared from working with the rest of the girls and was instead imprisoned in the room until Greysen Bourkee could come and claim her as his personal sex slave. All her hope was lost once again as she saw no escape from this situation, and she completely broke down while imprisoned in the room.

However, as she succumbed to the realization of her inevitable fate, Ken once again appeared before her. As Athela stares into Ken’s eyes, she can only pray that he would help her once more.

As the two briefly lock eyes, the nearing voices of Bourkee’s thugs cause Ken’s heart rate to increase.

“Are you sure he came this way?”

“He must have. I’m going to rip his arms off once I find him.”

“Serves him right for not paying and making us chase after him.”

Thinking quickly, Ken enters the room and closes the door before the thugs can notice. As he waits for the thugs to pass and walk away, Ken contemplates what he should do. He glances at Athela, whose once dead and hopeless eyes are filled with renewed hope. He has come to a crossroads that he wished he never did.

Ken thinks about his purpose there and struggles to justify leaving Athela. He has to find and kill Bourkee, and he doesn’t have the time to save her. Cayde’s words cross his mind, which argued that saving her wouldn’t save the others and would only hinder his mission. He has no attachment to her or the other girls. Not to mention that Bourkee’s men are already looking for him.

On the other hand, Ken recognizes that he is probably Athela’s only hope to escape. Staring into her hopeful eyes, he can see Athela is fearful that he would leave her to live as a slave to ruthless criminals.

Ken’s hands turn into fists as he has an internal struggle. His mind debates with itself as one side focuses on his mission while the other argues for his morals. Not wanting to hesitate and waste time, Ken caves and decides to help Athela. He doesn’t want to condemn her to death and make himself look soulless and evil. It would haunt his conscience if he did, and his mind wouldn’t let it go.

Ken approaches Athela, who remains still, and kneels in front of her. He looks at her and notices that her hands are handcuffed, and she has a thick leather collar on her neck. The collar connects with a chain that attaches to the wall behind her.

“I’m going to free you, all right? You’re safe with me,” Ken says to which Athela nods.

Ken reaches into a pocket on his waistcoat and takes out a small blue object. It is a blue rosehead pin that his employees wear. He brought it with him because he was going to leave it behind once Bourkee was dead to show that Ardai was responsible for his assassination and hopefully scare off the other gangs. Ken bends the needle outwards and inserts it into the lock in the handcuffs.

“So, what’s your name?” Ken softly asks while he fiddles with the handcuffs and needle.

“Athela…” she croaks.

“Beautiful name. Do you have a surname?”

“Hatheway…”

The handcuffs click, and Ken opens them up. He then throws the handcuffs away and takes a look at her collar. Since the collar is leather, Ken opts to take out a switchblade knife to cut it off. He moves Athela’s long hair back to expose the collar, but when he tries to gently pull the collar to make space for the knife, he notices that it hardly moves. The collar is fastened tight on her neck, almost choking her. Whoever tightened the collar must have been some cruel asshole to restrict her breathing like that.

“Hold completely still. I’m going to cut it off,” Ken says while slowly and carefully lacerating the collar with his knife.

Athela stiffens and closes her eyes, hoping that Ken doesn’t slice her neck by mistake. Noticing her behavior, Ken tries to calm her down and conversate.

“I’m Ken. Or… my real name is Kenneth Kai, but you can just call me Ken. So, do you know where you will go once you get out of here?”

“Yes…” she manages to reply with a hoarse voice.

“Good. I’d hate to see you continue to struggle here in Egwater. This is no place for a lady to live in.”

Once the collar is sufficiently cut, Ken grabs hold of it and rips it off to free Athela. When it falls, Athela’s neck is revealed to be bruised by the collar on top of the damage already done by her near-death experience when she killed four people. Seeing the abuse she went through; Ken truly feels sorry for her.

He stands and pulls her up onto her feet. Though Ken is six feet tall, Athela isn’t too much shorter than him. The difference is maybe four inches which makes her stand at eye level with plenty of people.

Suddenly, they hear the door to the room squeal open.

“What do you think you’re doing here?” a thug grunts at Ken.

“Oh, I um… was checking out the merchandise,” Ken tries to play it off. Behind the thug came another one who looks very annoyed.

“Do you have any idea who yer dealing with? This whore is reserved for Greysen Bourkee himself. Yer going to be sorry for causing us so much trouble.”

“Now, we can do this two ways. You can either hand over everything you have to compensate for our troubles, or we kill you where you stand.”

The two thugs both have a dagger in their hands and have an urge to pummel Ken regardless of what choice he makes. Ken isn’t about to hand over anything, so he decides he wants to fight. He just hopes he can dispatch them both quickly and hide the bodies so he can continue without problems.

“Let’s see you try then,” Ken taunts them.

One of the thugs swings his dagger over his head and down at Ken. Ken swiftly dodges the attack and grabs hold of his arm as it is extended. With his knee, Ken strikes the man’s elbow as it cracks and bends the wrong way. The thug hollers in pain from his broken arm. Ken hits him with a roundhouse kick to the face, and the thug falls back on the floor.

The other thug charges Ken and manages to tackle him to the ground. As the thug is on top, he swings his dagger at Ken, but he manages to move his head to the side, and the blade strikes the floor instead. Maneuvering his left leg in front of the thug’s neck, Ken pushes him and forces him to turn over and face upwards while he simultaneously grabs hold of the thug’s arm that held the dagger. Now Ken has him in an armbar and immediately twists the arm to snap it. As the thug cries in pain, Ken lets go, grabs the dagger, and uses his body weight to drive the blade into the thug’s chest.

Panting, Ken stands up and looks to finish off the other thug with the broken arm, but he isn’t there. The only thug in the room is the one he just killed; the other seems to have escaped.

“Oh, shit…” Ken whispers to himself. He knows that the other thug would alert the rest of them, and they would all be seeking to kill him.

He turns around to see Athela in the corner with her hands covering her mouth. He sees horror in her eyes as if she has never seen violence before.

“C’mon. You have to get out of here.” Ken extends his hand at Athela.

Athela hesitantly takes hold of his hand and walks behind him out of the small room she was imprisoned in.

Ken takes hold of his microphone and urgently speaks into it.

“This is Kai, my cover is blown, and they’re looking for me. Infiltrate and start blasting.”

Athela hears Ken speak but doesn’t understand why he talked to himself. However, with adrenaline pumping and the aspect of freedom, she doesn’t care.

As they make their way through a short hallway, Ken stops and turns to Athela.

“Listen, Athela. I have something important left to do here. You’re going to have to escape without me. Okay?”

Athela furrows her brows and shakes her head. Just as she thought he would lead her to freedom, he wants to send her off by herself.

Behind them, several voices of thugs echo, and they both glance back.

“You don’t have much time.” Ken reaches into his pocket to take out a pouch. He just remembered he still carries it, so he opens it to make sure there is money.

“Here, take this. There are a few dozen pounds in there. Whatever you want to do in life, this is more than enough to get started.”

Athela looks at the pouch in disbelief. A single pound is worth twenty shillings or two hundred and forty pence. Most peasants at the bottom of the food chain are lucky enough to earn a handful of pence in a day, and so dozens of pounds is an unimaginable amount of money. Surely letting go of so much money is a financial blow to Ken’s wallet, and Athela hesitates to accept it.

With the thugs coming nearer to finding them, Ken holds Athela’s hand open and places the pouch in her hand. “Just take it. They’re about to get here, so just run. I’ll hold them off for you.”

Athela can’t believe the lengths Ken is going, just so she can escape. This amount of selflessness is far beyond anything she could have ever dreamed of. A tear falls down her cheek as she continues to stare into Ken’s eyes.

“I’ll be fine, just go,” Ken assures her and pushes her away.

“Hey! There they are!” A group of thugs appears behind them, and Athela quickly runs away.

“Woah there! Hold it right there, boys! We can talk this out, can’t we?” Ken nonchalantly says.

Athela turns a corner but can’t bring herself to leave Ken. There is a large vase and plant on the edge of the corner, and Athela crouches to peek through the leaves. Stealthily listening and watching around the corner and through the leaves, she is concerned about what would happen to Ken.

Ken stands before the group and thinks of how to get out of his predicament. He has his Glock 19 with him but doesn’t think he would be able to kill all the guards before one of them gets to him. There are simply too many of them.

“Let me through,” a deep voice behind the thugs echoes with authority.

Ken raises his eyebrow as the thugs step aside to let whoever spoke through. The man who confidently steps forward is a large, tanned, middle-aged man who wears jewelry all over his arms and hands. This has to be their leader: Greysen Bourkee.

“What do we have here?” Greysen speaks. “Whom might you be, I wonder? You come up here without permission and run away from my men. You killed one of them and broke the arm of the other. Needless to say, I am not in a good mood.”

“I think there must be some sort of misunderstanding—”

“Shut your mouth! I ain’t want to hear excuses. Tell me why you are really here.”

Ken doesn’t say anything and instead wonders why his team hasn’t already started blasting their way through.

“You know what I think? I think you are with those Ardai dogs in the city. Why else would you come up here and wander around without buying any of the girls? Surely you are sent to find me. Do they think they can come and threaten me? On my turf?! Just because they defended against some useless low-lives I sent to rob them? Well, I’ll teach them that they can’t screw with me.”

Greysen suddenly reaches into his coat and takes out a familiar object: a flintlock pistol. Primed and cocked, Greysen points the flintlock pistol at Ken and smiles eagerly.

Suddenly, the building vibrates as a small explosion goes off somewhere. Everyone’s faces turn grim in confusion. Greysen looks around at his men, whom all have no idea what the noise is. Ken feels a slight bit of relief as he knows exactly what it is. Shortly after, numerous suppressed gunshots are barely audible, and they nearly fail to notice them.

Greysen looks back at Ken, who doesn’t look bothered or concerned about the noise. Enraged, he immediately thinks that he has something to do with it. Greysen quickly raises his flintlock pistol once more and fires at Ken. With a loud crack and a puff of smoke, the lead ball instantly flies at Ken. The shot strikes Ken on his lower left breast as he spins around from the impact before falling on his stomach, face down on the ground.

Athela is startled from the loud gunshot, and her eyes shoot wide open in shock as she observes the situation from cover. She grips her mouth closed with her hands to try to suppress herself from squealing as she witnesses Ken get shot. Her eyes begin tearing up, and she started to hyperventilate.

“Give me another, quickly!” Greysen demands a thug who swaps his flintlock pistol with another one that is ready to fire.

Wasting no time, Greysen approaches Ken’s body and aims the flintlock pistol at him. He fires again, and the lead ball implants itself into Ken’s back.

“There’s more of them downstairs! Find and kill them all!” Greysen orders all his men.

After witnessing Ken get shot again, Athela’s hopes that he survived the first shot vanishes. Her eyes are teary, and she is in shock that her savior has just been killed. Staring at his body on the ground, Athela slowly calms down. She lets go of her mouth, and she stops crying as her face became increasingly neutral. With her face covered in tears, her eyes became cold, empty, and dead as cynicism takes a firm grip on her mental state. She is completely crushed that her only shining star in such an evil world was taken from her right in front of her eyes.

As Greysen and his men disperse to find the rest of Ken’s team, Athela slowly backs away from the corner to stand up. She stares into the pouch of money Ken gave her as a final teardrop falls on the floor. She grips the pouch tightly and turns to run away before the thugs can spot her. A new life would start for Athela, far away from the source of her injustice.