Eden

Tom leaned against the alley's cool, white wall, catching his breath as footsteps echoed away. This was it, his overreliance on Erraskos would finally be his undoing. One more job was the promise, and that was four jobs ago. He peeked around the corner and watched the two pursuing hegemony soldiers turn down another alley and vanish.

He breathed a huge sigh of relief, but there was no respite to be had, at least not from the ever-critical spirit that had made his mind its home.
“You’re slowing down, boy,” Sekniel’s voice, a cold whisper only Tom could hear, cut through the silence of the night. “A Nephilim, beaten by the weight of his own fears. How...pathetic.”

Tom began to move, keeping to the shadows as he navigated the labyrinthine alleys of the Silver City. Lanterns cast dim light, barely penetrating the dense fog cloaking the city’s underbelly.

"Maybe if you were more helpful and less... yourself, we'd get things done faster," he said aloud, ignoring unsettled glances from the other late-night travellers. All they would have seen is a dirty Chorobaltas talking to himself. That was fine by him, fuck them.

“Oh, please,” Sekniel scoffed, his voice a mixture of amusement and disdain. “Your incompetence is not my fault. You’ve grown weak, Tom. Reliant on the powers that you barely understand and certainly don't deserve.”

The job had, predictably, gone wrong. Erraskos had sent him to collect a debt from the Velarx gang in the lower city. The gang’s name, Velarx, meant something like “the runners” but Tom really wasn’t sure. His grasp of the language hadn’t improved since he’d left the Metrini, which made him feel like he had a target on his back.

When Tom had arrived at the meeting point alone the gang had a field day. They were expecting at least six armed men and when a dirty and dishevelled Tom had arrived, they laughed in his face when he asked for the payment. The confrontation had quickly spiralled into chaos, and it was only by sheer luck that Tom managed to escape with the payment, a sack of drahmel clutched in his hands, just as the Hegemony soldiers burst onto the scene.

Tom's powers felt duller by the day. The adrenaline, the rush of combat that had once made him invincible was fading, leaving him to rely more on luck than skill. Sekniel's constant criticism didn't help, making him feel more alone than ever in this strange place. As Tom navigated the alleys, his mind was a tumult of frustration and growing cynicism. The Silver City, with its gleaming spires and polished facades, had become a gilded cage. His attempts to follow Zillah's directions and find Telumiel, whoever he was, felt vaguer than ever, every fight and every botched job for Erraskos brought him further away from the man that he wanted to be.

Tom stumbled into the back of Erraskos' establishment, the dull exterior of the shop front belying the more clandestine activities conducted in the rear.

Erraskos sat at his desk, amongst piles and piles of seemingly random objects. The back of the barber shop was dimly lit and the scattered light barely illuminated the haphazard collection of relics that cluttered the room.

"Ah, Tom my boy, you're back. And not empty-handed, I see," Erraskos remarked, his gaze fixed on the sack.

“Yes, I am…barely.” Tom grunted angrily “The next time you send me to do the job of six men, you pay me the salary of six men…” Tom bit out as he paced the room, waiting for the adrenaline to leave his body.

Erraskos just gave a dismissive wave of his hand “Yes, yes, whatever.” He said before regarding an object on his desk and holding it up so that Tom could see it “What do you make of this?" He held up a small, round, fluffy object.

Tom squinted at the object, then shrugged. "Looks like a... Furby? They were these weird toy things back on Earth. Supposed to be cute, I guess. They’re for kids…”

It seemed that wasn’t the answer Erraskos was looking for, and a sour look crossed his face, but it didn’t remain for long, after considering the Furby for a moment, a sly grin split his features “A mystical guardian idol, then. I'm sure it will fetch a handsome price."

Tom just sighed and sat down on the other side of the desk "Now...as much as I enjoy being your underpaid errand boy...I've been here for months Erraskos. I swear, if you have nothing that will help me find Telumiel I'm just going to go off on my own...anything is better than getting beat up to put drahmel in your pocket."

Tom's glare fixed Erraskos with a mix of frustration and desperation. In response, the older man begun stroking his chin thoughtfully.
"As it stands...I do have something. There is a tannery, just on the border with the book quarter...do you know what a tannery smells like Tom?"

Growing more and more frustrated by the second, Tom ground his teeth together, waiting for Erraskos to get to the point. "Like shit?"
Erraskos nodded "yes, like shit...do you know what it isn't supposed to smell of? Smoke and iron...most people don't hang around there long enough to notice but people born in the gutter like me...we know a front when we see one. There's a forge below that workshop...and the smell keeps prying eyes away."

Tom's heart leapt in his chest. It was the most substantial lead he had received since arriving in the Silver City, and he clung to it as a possible step closer to finding Telumiel and having Sekniel reforged.

"Thank you," Tom muttered, his voice a mix of gratitude and determination. He stood up, adjusting the worn-out cloak around his shoulders, ready to face whatever awaited him outside Erraskos' cluttered sanctuary.

"Are you sure you want to leave now? You haven't slept."

Tom was getting so impatient that sleep was the last thing on his mind "I didn't realise my wellbeing was of such concern to you Erraskos..." he quipped. The cheek of the man to send him into a hopeless fight for a few coins one moment and to remark on his lack of sleep the next baffled him.

"Joke all you want boy, I have taken care of you since you arrived here, if it was someone else, they would've ratted you out to the hegemony the moment you arrived, never mind pay you a wage."

"Some wage," Tom grumbled "And speaking of which, I'll come back for what you owe me..."

“Yes…yes. For now, take this…” Erraskos tossed a small pouch of drahmel to Tom “the tannery is just beyond the first checkpoint. Be careful, it’s the early hours so whatever wastrels are on duty will be the worst of the worst.”

With the final warning, Tom bid Erraskos goodbye and exited through the back of the barbershop.
The early morning air of the Silver City was cool and tinged with a subtle metallic scent, the streets beginning to stir with the first signs of life. His path was a solitary one, weaving through piles of filth as people emptied their chamber pots out of the windows above him.
By the time he got in sight of the checkpoint, his heart started to beat heavily in his chest. The soldiers, clad in gleaming armour that contrasted with the filth around them, smirked as Tom approached.

"What's this then? A dirty Chorobaltas lost on his way to the fields?" one of the soldiers jeered, blocking Tom's path with a spear.
"Just passing through...my father wanted his ashes scattered in the upper city...he was a soldier, like you" Tom lied, his voice steady despite the lump forming in his throat. The soldier scrutinized him, his eyes narrowing in suspicion.

"The son of a soldier hey? What's your name boy?"

"Tulius sir" Tom lied. His real name would be far too out of place, Tulius sounded Latin enough to pass as a real name.
The checkpoint guard scrutinized Tom with disdain. "Tulius, huh? Well, let's see those ashes then." His tone was mocking, expecting Tom to falter.

Tom produced the bag that Zillah had given him, silently praying that he hadn't run into either of these guards before.
The guard, perhaps disappointed that he wouldn't get to victimise someone this early in the day, hesitated, then grunted. "Fine but make it quick. We don't need your kind stinking up the place more than it already is."

Passing through the checkpoint, Tom felt the weight of the guards' eyes on his back, a reminder that having a cover story didn't guarantee your safety when you were dealing with power tripping fascists.

"Twat" he murmured under his breath once he was out of earshot. It was then he begun to take in his surroundings.

The book quarter, despite the name, was just as dirty as the section of the city he had just ventured from. When he first arrived, Erraskos told him that the book quarter was simply a name for this area and nothing more, it was historically the place where books were bought and sold, but some genius had the idea to move the manufacturing aspects of parchment production closer to their clientele. As a result, along with parchment, they also brough the foul smells of the production of said product to the book quarter. Naturally, the more bookish citizens of Eden wanted to be as far away from the stench of sulphur and lime as possible. Tom figured a more appropriate name would be the "smells like shit quarter".

The tannery loomed ahead, and as he approached, the unmistakable smell of smoke and iron assaulted his senses, a distinct scent amidst the expected foulness of tannery processes.

Crossing the threshold, Tom found himself amidst the hustle of workers, their hands and faces stained with the by-products of their labour. One worker, however, stood out among the crowd. He was surveying everything the others were doing with an air of authority. 'A foreman?' Tom thought, and he gathered his resolve and approached clearing his throat to catch the man's attention.
In his left hand, he clutched the small oval shaped talisman that Zillah had given him all those months ago "I was told to come here..." he said, flashing it towards the man.

The foreman hissed and turned his head away, as if looking at the token would burn a hole in his corneas. "The back... don't talk to anyone."
Taking the somewhat unhelpful instructions on board, Tom moved towards the back of the workshop, the workers paying him no mind. He found the back of the tannery as nondescript as the rest, save for a heavy door that looked out of place and upon pushing it open, struggling much more than he'd like to admit, he was met with a long, dark corridor which angled down slightly, illuminated only by a reddish glow coming from the other end.

"You've been suspiciously quiet..." he said out loud, wondering why he had gone without Sekniel's commentary for so long. His voice reverberated along the narrow corridor.

"It was simply a stunned silence at the fact you haven't made any mistakes for at least an hour."

The condescension set Tom's teeth on edge "Here was me hoping you were asleep..."
Every step he took was enunciated with the pounding of a hammer and the closer he got to the end of the corridor the louder the hammering got.


I know this ends pretty abruptly but this is all I'm happy with sharing so far. This scene is midway through so it kind of drops you right in in regards to different story concepts.