Dark Deeds, Cheap Price, and a Sister's Shadow

The weight of the Abbot’s pronouncement still sat heavy on Bishop Dark’s shoulders, a damp wool cloak on a muggy day. “A simple escort, Dark. To the edge of the Whispering Woods. Minimal risk, minimal pay.” Kale had said it with that practiced air of detachment, the kind that always preceded a job that would inevitably go sideways. And the pay… a pittance. Barely enough to keep his flask full for a week, let alone cover the dwindling expenses of his… *lifestyle*. But it wasn’t the coin that had snagged his attention, not really. It was the addendum, whispered almost as an afterthought, a conspiratorial wink in the Abbot’s tired eyes. “The client… they’re willing to offer… *alternative compensation*. Information, they said. A favor. Something that might… broaden your horizons.”

Bishop Dark knew what ‘alternative compensation’ meant in the shadowed corners of Tolvo Kettburgh. It meant ‘skin payment.’ Not the literal kind, though he’d taken that too, many a time. This was about favors owed, secrets traded, pieces of the grand, grubby puzzle that made up the city’s underbelly. And for Bishop Dark, that puzzle had a singular, gaping hole in the middle, a hole shaped precisely like his sister, Talia. Five years. Five years since he’d last seen her bright, curious eyes, five years since she’d been snatched away, leaving only an ache in his gut and a gnawing emptiness that no amount of ale or… *companionship* could ever truly fill.

So, he’d taken the job. The escort. The pittance. The promise of a skin payment that might, just might, be the thread he needed to pull.