Adrian8562

In the rotting port city of Daggerfall seventeen year old Kael Vos moves in the shadows not out of principle, but because it’s the only way to survive. Fresh to the city and tied to the howlers, a street gang clawing for relevance in a city choked by crime, Kael takes the jobs he’s given no questions asked. He’s not a killer, not yet but he’s no hero either, just another blade trying to make rent. 

When a simple debt collection job goes sideways Kael finds himself branded unreliable. He’s caught between rival factions ready to tear each other apart. Nine criminal houses carve Daggerfall to pieces, the cities noble lord looks the other way as long as his belly stays full. 

As pressure mounts Kael must chose between playing the pawn in a game he barely understands or carving his own path In a city that eats men like him alive. But survival in Daggerfall comes with a cost, and blood always pays.

daggerfall: the nine nooses

Kael moves slowly through the narrow backstreets, hand pressed firm to his side. The knifes were gone, silver in his pocket, but the wound felt deeper now. Not just pain, weight. Like the city had slipped somthing in his pocket when he wasn't looking. Each step felt heavier than the last.

He passed a begger asleep against a broken barrel, a boy picking through the ribs of last nights fire, and a drunk mumbling under his own breat

No one looked twice at him, another limping man in a city that broke people

He turned down a street he didn't know the name of following the smell of old herbs. Somewhere ahead a healer worked, he just hoped she wasn't the kind that charged extra

Following the smell, Kael found a place tucked behind a tailors shop past a broken arch. A door with no handle, just scratches from all the fists that had ever knocked

Kael leaned against the frame breathing through the pain, before he had a chance to knock a voice dry and sharp called from behind the door

"If your bleeding out, do it outside. If your paying speak up"

Kael cleared his throat "need a fix"

A pause, then the door creaked open just enough for a hand to wave him in

The room was small and dim, lit by a single red candle. Shelves sagged with jars filled with herbs, feathers, bones. A kettle hissed in the corner

At the center sat a hunched old women, in a moth eaten shawl. Her hair was white, braided down her back like rope.

Kael dropped onto a wooden stool. She looked him over sniffed once, then slapped his hand away and pulled back his coat

"Blade got you in the hip" she muttered "didn't get the artery, lucky"

She reached into a wooden box, pulled out a flat blue stone, and set it besides him. It pulsed faintly barley noticeable.

Kael watched as she sat on a stool across from him. She placed one hand on the stone, steady and firm. With the other she pulled a long thin needle from a roll of cloth

Before he could speak, she jabbed the needle into the edge of the wound sharp and precise. Pain tore through him immediate, like fire threading through the muscle. His breath caught in his throat

Then came the shift, he felt somthing stir the skin. A heat that wasn't quite burning, the wound didn't close fast. It knit slow and tight like invisible thread was dragging it shut stitch by stitch.

The old woman didn't blink, her hand stayed on the stone. Focused

Kael looked down. The bleeding had stopped, the wound was sealed in a dark line of new skin.

"Wound sealed" she said "still tender, don't open it unless you want me to do it again. And I won't be gentle next time."

old hands