Arcanum Tales Chapter 2 page 1 0f 6

Shadows were long in the Boil hours before Sebastian arrived, and the day's stifling heat, absorbed earlier into the soot-blackened tangle of its streets, leaked slowly upward in thick, tepid waves. Plumbing and wire hung between the crowded shops like cobwebs, the light of flickering lanterns revealing corroded metal signs and warped wooden siding. Everything was covered in an unnatural and oily film, dripping, as if the city itself were feverish. It served as the labored heart of Tarantian commerce, but to see it, especially here at night, the Boil took on the swollen and festering characteristics of its bodily namesake. It was a place that Sebastian knew well, but familiarity, in cases such as these, breeds a heightened sense of care; he proceeded with measured step and scrutiny.

Sebastian was a tall man, long of limb, and dressed in well-tooled leather armor. Over this he wore a trenchcoat, and strapped to his shoulders was a canvas pack. He moved within the shadows when possible, taking a roundabout way to his destination. The gentlemen who had earlier supplied him with the information had been less than talkative at first, but later had been quite forthcoming. Sebastian had found that most negotiations were a success once you'd properly defined the terms and conditions of the contract-three broken fingers had done this satisfactorily, and Sebastian had been on his way within the hour.

It wasn't long before he arrived at the address given him. Above the front entrance were letters carved in simple block script, and from which stained rivulets fell groundward, like tears. THE BENTLEY. The building was squat and made of brick; on the first floor there were two windows, unadorned aside from the thick bars mounted across them, and the front door, which he guessed was both stout and locked. Being what he was, the lock worried him very little, but, the situation being what it was, who or what was waiting behind it unquestionably worried him much more. Direct solutions were reserved for those with clarity of vision and purpose, and Sebastian, currently lacking both, decided to find a more indirect course of action. After lowering an eyepiece over his spectacles, he removed a threaded cylinder from his belt and screwed it onto the end of his revolver. Stealth would be necessary for the night's excursion. Holstering his gun, Sebastian quietly slipped into the shadows of an alleyway adjacent to the building, leaving no trace of his passing but the slightest smell of oiled metal and sulfur, which the reek of the Boil quickly claimed as its own.