Chapter 5:

Chapter 5: To behold depravity is to temper your filial loyalty

Our travel through the forest was far longer than it needed to be, our trek resembling the demented roads of the city. We have taken such a path to avoid notice, for while the forest was not a popular spot, it was not empty of Eldar.

In our preparations we have noticed fulcrums, little social levers and individuals on which the diplomatic landscape of the endless orgies relied in order to keep up a mockery of peace and harmony.

The first part of our adventure was not a trek through the woods, not a normal one at least, but an assassination spree. The day was chosen due to the fact that three individuals we needed dead had finally left the city.

Each of them were bards, pimps, whores and chefs depending on the day or their whims. Each day their old clients ran the risk that they would become the product the others would purchase but they were in many ways an important linchpin in the ecosystem the cults have created for themselves.

Our first target was a woman, and I used the term generously.

She had red ears that contrasted with the rest of her otherwise pristine green skin. Reddening ears would normally signify romantic interest among couple but hers were a shade redder than what Eldar would naturally be able to create leaving us to wonder if perhaps this wasn't some sort of signal to her would be prey that she represented love beyond mortal bounds.

The rest of herself was just a further caricature of the eldar form.

Her feet were made of bone, not Wraithbone, but bone stumps from her knees down. She would dance as she walked, not caring or perhaps loving the pain such actions cause her.

Her upper body was naked, with only phallic appendages of at least twenty different species staked by wraithbone poles to her skin and muscle to cover herself with, none of which covered her private parts as they bled, each drop creating the continuation of a poetry she had never stopped writing upon the ground since we have started researching her movements.

The only part of her one would categorize as normal was her hair, or better said lack of it. It was a common stylistic choice among the Eldar of this world, long before the pleasure cults started popping up our research found.

A mental click followed as we approached her, too far for her to hear us or have a chance of intercepting the psychic signal, but close enough that her presence became relevant.

Marsa wanted the kill. Our formation shifted, I was no longer at the front but at the back of the rhombus formation we traveled with. None of us opposed her bloodlust, our eyes hurt when we looked at her. Some sort of spiritual malady centered around attacking males no doubt. She is not the only one to carry such we have found but she did not show the symptoms in the past.

Either a new addition or something she keeps hidden in the city.

Marsa took position as our holofields continued to work and no sound escaped our steps as we ran towards her.

One heartbeat passed as we modified our trajectory, she changed course from north-north-east to north. We have to hit her from behind to avoid her notifying her customers before she is dead.

I went west, and Aesan east, both of us splitting from formation according to our training. A heartbeat later Guraith went up into the trees as he picked a position where he would get a firing position as soon as our sister would be upon her quarry.

Aesan and I had the unenviable position of spotters, to send Marsa a signal if she is to alter her course or to create a distraction if we needed to prevent our prey from noticing her demise. It was not necessary.

A second heartbeat passed, our prey entered the clearing.

A third heartbeat passed and so did our sister.

A fourth beat did not have the time to pass before the head of our quarry separated from her body. Three shuriken hit her before she could hit the ground courtesy of Guraith. The first 2 hit her eyes to avoid the unlikely chance of her seeing our sister, the third however was different, it was coated in a painkiller and neurotoxin hybrid we have found that could be made from local plants around the orphanage. It's job was to attack the brain and prevent it from receiving or even acknowledging the fact that it had been separated from its body. Her face never once had fallen upon our sister as she ran.

We didn't stop running as her head hit the ground on the fifth heartbeat, and her soul did not even realize that it had left its body by the time we have left the range to be able to observe it.

She will not be the last to die today.

"Good job." I psychically sent to her in a short burst.

She only nodded back to us, as she took her position to the right. I moved to the back and Guraith to the left.

The next kill will be Aesan's we decided by unspoken agreement. Our next target was the triplets' biological sire. Upon finding of this in the planning stages the eldest of the triplets swore that he would be the one to kill him if he were chosen as a target. None of us opposed.

I already had my own vengeance on the first few seconds after my birth the Maton confirmed to me. My first scream into this world was accompanied by a sonic screech that flensed the flesh off my genetic donors' bones before the rest of his orgy could realize or prevent my newborn mind from defending itself. I did not get another kill that day unfortunately.

We were 5 heartbeats away from our target when Guraith closed his fist as a mental ping reached the rest of us. Our target was talking to someone.

"Reprioritize?" Was my question as we changed direction.

We did not abandon our hunt for the triplets' sire, instead we started circling around our target.

Our target had to die but we needed to make sure it would not raise an alarm.

"Negative, talking to himself." Was Guraith's reply.

Our quarry continued heading South-West-West. And we started to split in the same way as before. I went left, Guraith right and Marsa picked a spot on a particularly large rock south of our target to repeat Guraith's action on our previous kill.

I looked at the man. He looked normal compared to the vast majority of our race.

He was shirtless, his upper body and skin within the bounds of normal eldar physiques , his face was mostly normal and his black hair the same color as the triplets' original one. His pants were the same nuance of purple and black that many others on the world prioritized.

The only thing that differentiated him from the rest of our people were his eyes. They were not attached to his head but to the back of his hand. His eye sockets were holes one could see through from the front and from the back.

Our second target started praying, his knees touching jagged rocks as he muttered nonsense as he always did this day of the week.

I had just stared as Aesan decapitated him, cutting his hands in the process. Thankfully Guraith managed to shoot the right hand before the oldest triplet could pass it by and Mirsa did not miss her mark with her own shots to ensure his soul left its body long before the Eldar realized that it was dead.

We regrouped once again.

I was first, Guraith to my left, Mirsa to my back and Aesan to my right.

We had already killed two of the three targets we had to kill outside the city, the three others inside the city will be more difficult.

"Third target no longer a priority, fifth target dead, sixth target no longer a priority." Our seer brother said.

We stopped.

"Explain." I demanded and created a link between all four of us.

"Third target no longer a priority, fifth target was killed by fourth target. They will not revive on this world." Guraith said and sent us the details.

We needed to kill our third target to create strife between targets four and six, the cessation of relations between alchemist and chief seller of drugs enough to create the distraction we needed.

"We abandon plan 1, we switch to plan 14, plans 2 through 7 are no longer viable, 8 through 13 remain unlikely. Plan 20 impossible, plan 45 will require modifications and discussion if it remains feasible." I said after a second of consideration and we started running once again.

The sunset was fast approaching and we have lost three days of wiggle room on the first day due to bad luck, turning our estimated time of departure from this world from seven days to ten.

We needed to make shelter for the night. We selected the spot closest to us we have determined as appropriate for making camp and I prepared myself for the runic inscriptions needed to keep ourselves hidden during the night.

We will not travel under the light of the stars, not through the forest at least, the local night predators are too loud and sensitive to bother with and hunt through scent. Our methods of hiding ourselves are not as effective on that front so we will not risk the sound during the night.

'Let's hope tomorrow is more productive.' I thought to myself as I begun carving into Wraithbone my siblings had just conjured, the cave we have selected for shelter just becoming visible to our eyes.