Consequences

Fire burned in the mist.

But there are no more screams now.

Knives had fallen, then quiet.

**********************



Two days after the disaster of the Venture Ball, unknown assailants had attacked a Brallaugh counting house on the central island of Urteau; it had been the crowning glory of the Urteau Financial District. Though it had been guarded by a dozen Hazekillers, the once beautiful marble facade now stood blackened and empty; the wooden building behind utterly destroyed. Obligators stood in the street, shaking their heads in confoundment at the sheer waste of the scene. This had been no simple arson or even ambitious robbery.

Someone had taken the time to pile up all the bagged coins from the vault in a heap in the foyer under all the expensive furniture and drapes. A torch thrown on top was all it had taken to gut the building and create a pile of precious slag; a hoard of now useless gold. But before setting fire to the building, they had taken the time to drag out the bodies of the Hazekillers, eleven of them lined up on the old well worn steps. The twelfth man had been spared the fire, but not much else. When the Brallaugh bankers found him that morning his eyes had been gouged out and his thumbs cut off. When they found him, he had already screamed himself hoarse and would only whisper one phrase.

"Your time is coming..."

**************

Though they couldn't directly acuse anyone, Brallaugh were very vocal in their denouncement of House Venture. What is a Governing House, after all, if they allow such anarchy and destruction in their own capitol city? Voices soon whisper, sewing doubt in Venture's leadership. No voice dares to go above a whisper, but whisper they do, and many ears listen. And consider...

**************


Tensions rise in Urteau. Though the Kings on the board are as yet unaware, the pawns plan their own game. It is early yet, and the game has only just begun. One by one, the pawns will soon start to fall...