The Cells
The Unfortunate Son inhales again, nodding as if this was the answer he expected, and exhales as he speaks.
"Good. We are kindred spirits, in a way. You too know that one must seek adversity lest this wretched world swallow them whole," he says.
He stands, rolls his shoulders.
"I have a trial for you, Cold Hands. Be patient, prepare your strength. For what little remains holy to you... this will be a rapture."
Kira's Private Box
There is a moment of silence. You can almost picture the exchange of glances
And then Kira speaks.
"Enter."
So you do.
The room is layered with history; the dull red stone, undressed and functional, from the colosseum's founding. Finery and filigree laid over that, then torn away but for parts too awkward to remove or too ugly to fence, layered again with the trappings of VIP opulence, then finally adorned to Kira's tastes. Gunmetal grays, highlights of gold, and replicas of her favourite guns.
As you wait patiently to be called forward, Kira dismisses the Vampire's agent - a boy, possibly, and perhaps fifteen, dressed in black silk. He needs no badge of office. The Vampire's mark is evident in his coal-black eyes.
He drifts from the room like a ghost, followed by Kira's growl of "and take your fucking spiders with you."
With the merest whisper a single-file parade of spiders flows across the ceiling and out the door.
It's just you and her, now. The finest gunsmith in the known world, they say. Exile of House Yrva. She's stocky, muscled with that particular corded strength of dedicated artisan in heavy metals. Dressed in a fine gray-and-gold vest so her arms are left bare.
Her features are broad and angular, but her eyes dominate your attention if you look at her face. Faintly glowing blue-white, three irises rotating and oscillating with her gaze.
They say she can put a bullet in your heart from two leagues away.
"Good timing, Chegs," she says, her voice slightly rasped from fumes. She has never bothered to learn to pronounce the Goblin's name right. Or perhaps she feels some affection for him betrayed in the diminutive. Who can know the mind of a demigod?
"You've got my cut, for your guns? Wait."
She holds up a hand suddenly, then reaches under the arm of her scuffed and worn (but evidently comfy) chair.
Her eyes scan the ceiling, following something you can't quite make out, and then a gunshot echoes in the small room.
Whatever she hit was vaporized by the bullet as it plouged through the stone.
"Right. Cheeky fucking thing. Loot, then; you have it?"