<Need a better name>

Basking in the midday son, Kara took a moment to let the warmth of a bright Ellesanin day soak into her dark skin. The market streets of Athun-Stannont's most magically advanced city were as busy as ever, with the peddlers and stalls trading various sundries and goods. The young tiefling closed her eyes and listened to the song of trade, shutting out the afternoon light and the stares and odd looks she always received when venturing forth in public. Being the home of the most impressive mage's college in the world the citizens of Ellesanin were far more used to strange and unusual sights than most others, but a tiefling still wasn't wholly welcome anywhere in Lautumai, save a few elven woods.

As she rested her head against a nearby wall she felt a familiar, if irritating sensation in the back of her mind before a voice rung out as clear as a bell. “Abator Windriver, you have a dead drop at The Alchemist's Retreat. The alley behind, third barrel down. The missive is already waiting with instructions. Be there before nightfall. Be cautious.”

Kara sighed and shook her head. Empaths were useful, especially for an organization that didn't technically exist and whose full members she wasn't even aware of, but the method was still a slight bit unsettling. The Abators, after all, were Athun-Stannont's unofficial solution to rogue wizards and demonic warlocks. A group of mage-hunters and spellslayers who worked in secret to clean up the less desirable elements of a magically rich nation. And Kara, albeit for justifiable reasons, fit that definition in a looser sense.

“I swear, if they ever find out about your bloody arse I am … well, I'm dead,” the tiefling groaned, glancing down to her shadow. She had no way of knowing if the fiend that went by the name The Tormentor was about, but she always felt it safe to err on the side of caution. She thought to herself now was as good a time as any and pushed off from the wall and began slipping through the crowded streets, her freshly polished horns glinting in the midday son.

Kara flipped through the packet of papers detailing the whereabouts and accusations against her target in the shade of the deserted alley with an ever deepening frown before making up her mind. “Tee,” she called out, “Tee, I need to speak with you.” As usual there was no answer and she hated having to repeat herself, but she knew he wouldn't ignore her summons on the third try and spoke his name once more, pushing more of her will into the moniker.

At first there was no answer but then a small slit begin to ripple into her shadow and the outline of a many fanged maw appeared, sighing heavily. “What in the World Above and World Below do you want, child?” came the impatient and ever annoyed voice of Kara's Patron.

The tiefling narrowed her eyes at her own shadow. “First, I want to know why you neglected to tell me there was a soddin' evil -” she paused to let the mocking laugh subside at her choice of adjective before continuing, “...warlock operatin' inside of Ellesanin?”

“I have told you not to call me by that name. Because I simply do not care what every filthy half-breed does on this godsforsaken ground. Why would I?” the fiend countered, the maw curling with aggravation at what it considered a pointless question.

“Because that's the whole bloody point of you havin' me around, isn't it? You're the one who points me at evil, shut it, warlocks and I go and take care of 'em. Right?” she explained, smacking the missive with her hand, “That's kind of how I got started doin' all of this in the first place.”

“True,” admitted the fiend, “But his patron is not of my former ilk and not known to me and therefore this whelp is none of my concern.” The mouth blew out another breath before continuing, “Now, if you are quite done with your silly questions, you have interrupted my meal.”

And with that Kara's shadow rippled once more and the mouth was gone as quickly as it came. Kara couldn't be entirely sure the Tormentor wasn't lurking about but she knew that he wasn't one to pass up a meal. And in a city this large, full of despondent and frustrated mages, he'd have plenty to choose from. Looking over the dossier once more she was as certain as she could be that she was truly alone.

“Maritis, warlock, enthrallment... standard dodgy magic it would seem,” mused the mage-hunter aloud reading off the details and tapping the dossier once more, “Shouldn't be too much of challenge...”



Night had fallen, the warm sun sunk behind the clouds as a cool evening breeze blew through the streets. It had taken the better part of a day to track down the location of the warlock, but luckily the information the Abators had collected was more recent than what they were usually required to work with. A small two-story home that had been sold in the past few weeks for an inordinately low price seemed to be where the warlock had set up shop. And given that all of the surrounding houses had suddenly decided to move, some families having been there for years, meant the accusations of enthrallment and mental magic were more than likely correct.

Kara knew she'd have to be on her guard with this one, better than most of her fellow mage-hunters. Enchantment was a dangerous and often misused school of magic, the temptation to simply bend one's mind to your will all too appealing for less than reputable mages. Luckily her mentor knew a thing or two about twisting minds and had passed this knowledge on to Kara herself, who found the more gentle methods particularly handy for dealing with troublesome spellslingers. She almost smiled as she entertained the notion of twisting the warlock's own crimes back on him, but quickly realized the folly in that logic. One didn't sling fire without knowing how much it could burn and the same was true for most forms of spellcraft.

The information collected didn't detail anything more and Kara wished that the Abators would bother to learn if the target focused on a particular element or not. “Well, I s'pose we'll jus' have to do this the bloody ol' fashion way, then,” the tiefling mused to no one in particular as she stalked towards the home, drawing the long blade from her back. “Maybe I'll get lucky an' this one'll use fire again.”

The home didn't look much like the lair of an evil wizard, with it's neatly painted flower boxes along the windows and red bricked walkway leading from the street proper. Kara supposed that the warlock hadn't been there long enough to drop a few skulls in the window as she slipped forward. A quick flick of her wrist and a gust of wind snuffed out the nearby torches, the shadows growing darker and covering her approach as she quietly hopped the fence surrounding the home and crouched under a nearby window. She cocked a pointed ear and listened in but heard nothing more than the pages of a book being turned. Granted, it was about as much as she could really expect, she knew, but she had hoped that maybe she'd get lucky and find the man chanting in some unknown but sinister tongue. While she trusted the Abator's findings, it always put her mind a bit more at ease when it was beyond doubt that the target needed to be dealt with.

Poking her head up above the small flower box Kara peered inside. Sitting in front of a large and cozy looking fireplace was a man of around average height with a salt and pepper beard and neatly cropped hair. It looked more like someone's father than an evil mage, but the bowl of what looked like fresh blood resting in front of the fireplace and the creature lapping from it was a bit of a giveaway. A familiar and a particularly nasty looking one at that, with its over sized ears, bulbous eyes, and chitinous growths. Hopefully the creature wasn't overly fond of it's master and would flee at the first sign of trouble, but Kara wouldn't hold her breath. She'd just have to keep an eye out or make this quick.

Taking a deep breath to calm her nerves and steel her resolve Kara gave another quick flick of her wrist, summoning a spectral hand to quietly undo the latch on the inside of the window frame. The lock clicked back with hardly a sound and Kara gripped the hilt of her blade tightly. She would try to do this quick and fast and overwhelm the warlock before he knew what had hit him. If she could cross the floor and get to him before he had a chance to realize what was happening this could be over in a single stroke of her blade. She'd have to be quick, precise, and hope that nothing got in her way, but it was certainly doable. One last breath and she was ready.

The window shattered inward and flung glass everywhere, the quasit squatting on the floor let out a croaking scream that harmonized quite well with the tiefling's noisy entrance. The warlock slung his book across the room as he turned to stare in shock at the shape blurring across the floor towards him. Kara had gotten creative and timed her jump just perfectly, the spell blowing the window in and giving her no resistance as she managed to clear half the room before her heavy plated boots thudded against wood and rug. She didn't bother with fancy words, announcing who she was, or anything resembling a proper procedure. She simply grunted with effort and swung her sword in a low arc aimed at the man's throat as he began to rise and she crossed the last few steps. She started to smile, knowing her strike was true but her sharp teeth clacked together as her blade stopped an inch from slicing into flesh and a bolt of cold lanced through her arm. The sheen of frost coated the man's neck and he lashed out with his foot, driving Kara back as his spell deflected the killing stroke.

“Fuck all kinds of duck!” the tiefling screamed as the man quickly recovered from the shock, a little too fast really, and lashed out with a bolt of lightning, nearly catching her shoulder and driving her back across the room for cover. She ducked behind a shelf as more and more bolts slammed above and behind her, chips of wood and broken jars raining down. “Bugger me, this is a fine mess I've gotten myself into!” she cried, wondering how the man had been so well prepared with such a simple spell. She wouldn't have time to ponder it for long as the shelf split in half with one last bolt and caught her squarely in the back.




************************<There should be more shit before this but I ran out of time and this is where I stopped>**********************





"Darling, if you keep this up not even your pretty freckles are going to make you cute. You'll end up looking like some crummy old saddlebag," the dark elf chided, clicking his tongue in a disapproving fashion with a grin as the tiefling huffed and stripped out of her tunic.

"Look, you twit, it's not like I went in there an' asked some bloody mage to zap me, now is it?" Kara responded, wincing as the cloth dragged over the burnt flesh, "I mean, I'm a tiefling with right proper burns, Lucy. That just doesn't happen to us. I've swatted away flames like cobwebs before."

"Tsk tsk, that is just ghastly, sweetheart," spoke the bard named Lucy as he admired the wound, and maybe the tiefling a bit, as well. "You really ought to be a smidge more careful."

Kara sighed as she looked the wound over herself. "You can fix it, right? I'd go to an apothecary or healer, but..." she asked, her voice trailing off.

"Can I? You bet your dark skinned ass, my dear. Who do you think you're talking to?" He quickly responded, knowing full well that given how most people reacted to a planetouched he was likely to be the only one who would tend her wound. "Now, get over here and let me work my magic."

Kara tossed him a thankful smile and nodded her head as the drow stripped out of his gloves and asked, "So, my little devil, what do you plan to do now?"

"Plan? I plan to go back in there and kick that soddin' fools' arse between his shoulder blades. That's what I plan to do. The Abators gave me a job and I intend to finish it. I can't let the bloody bastard keep doing what he's done," answered the tiefling with a clenched fist.

"Well, I can't say I don't like them feisty...” teased Lucy with a grin, “But please, at least so I still have something nice to stare at, try not to get your own cute behind kicked.”