Cogs and Queens (Eberron Fan Fic) - Week 8
This one was a bit hard to get out, due to easter.
Content Warning: Course Language, Depression, thoughts of taking one's own life.
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Google Drive Link for correctly formatted version with NSFW content: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1j5vZqlNF-Vz-6zmDOT7fjOiCZ2vy9-kT/view?usp=sharing
Mercury looks over the railing edge in the heavy rain, seeing the sky bridges extending below. Their chest aches as they grip the railing tight with their mechanical arm. I could throw myself from here. One hundred feet down… The storm cracks through the sky, the city tops lighting with a flash. Mercury looks up, the rain washing over their face and soaking their hair as the cold bites them. My face soaking… Nobody can see the tears.
“Come on,” Tal says. “They could be here any moment.”
“Yeah…” Mercury steps away from the railing.
“You okay?” Tal asks, loading a rifle.
“Fucking great,” Mercury lies.
“Okay. You go up the catwalk. I’ll swing around the front,” Tal says.
Mercury nods and begins walking for the catwalk. Though the temptation of death was enticing, the possibility for a pardon and not being harassed by the watch was a reason to live. Besides, one of the greater sky bridges would most likely use a spell to reduce my falling speed.
The sound of crates shuffling inside the storage facility echoed.
Mercury sneaks up, placing themselves against the wall of the building next to a window. They peer in, their pistol unholstering, held to the left of their cheek.
“My brother, it is so good to see you,” a warforge says to another.
“Likewise. You will be happy to know that I have enough for two full suits.”
“Is it good enough to plaster onto ourselves? You have the right parts?”
“That is what I’m saying! I have already removed the innards. Go ahead, wear it.”
Mercury watches one of the warforge pick up the hollowed-out head of a dead man and stretches the skin over its head. Lord, what the fuck.
“Ha ha, you look like a human, brother.”
Mercury aims the pistol at one of them. And I thought what I was doing was bad. Just before Mercury pulls the trigger, a third one brings in Tal, dragging him along by the collar. “Oh fuck.”
“We have another body to use, my brothers!” it says, throwing Tal into the middle of all three of them.
Tal gets up, punching at the closest one, and misses.
“A fighter this orc man is.”
“You will be a fitting skin for my stee-” The crack of gunshot echoes through the facility, blasting one of the warforge’s heads in two.
Tal rolls towards the one that was shot, grabbing his rifle back. He points it at another but takes a foot made of iron to the face.
Mercury crashes through the window, glass spraying the inside of the building. They fire twice more at the closest one but miss both shots.
It charges Mercury, with inhuman ability leaping up onto the catwalk. It knocks the pistol aside out of Mercury’s hand and grabs them by the shoulder. “What are you?”
Mercury wraps their tale around its leg and tackles forward, knocking it through the catwalk's railing, landing down on the ground with a hard crash.
Tal gets thrown across the room by the other one, slamming him into shelving. He gets back up, holding his shoulder. “That all you got!?”
Mercury starts punching the warforge with their mechanical arm repeatedly.
The warforge throws Mercury to the side, and stands up, their wrists rotating in a full three-hundred-and-sixty degree turn.
Mercury runs back towards the shelving behind them. Just as the warforge leaps in a lunge, fist in the air towards them, Mercury swings a long steel pipe forward with their mechanical arm, impaling the constructed man. Its eyes flicker with a sad glow before it falls limp.
“Get – The – Fuck – Off – Me!” Tal says after every punch to the face from the last warforge. Mercury runs over and tackles them to the side, latching on, but not good enough as they are propelled further.
Just as Tal raises a metal pipe to beat the warforge, the doors slam open, and the guard begins rushing in. One of them uses a lightning spell, shocking the construct in place.
It screams in pain as the lightning fries their internals, and the guards begin tieing it up.
Mercury hoists themself off the ground, watching it happen. They instantly begin walking at a fast pace to where their pistol fell from above. They spot Tal talking with Captain Damon Vanhoutte, watching a pouch of gold fall into Tal’s hands. They pick up their gun from beneath the catwalk and holster it again.
“Mercury, you did good,” Tal says.
“What the fuck was going on here, Tal? They were killing people to make custom human suits? What the fuck.”
“It’s pretty gruesome,” Tal says, ruffling his hair.
“Never seen anythin’ like it, and I came from the demon wastes.”
“Yeah, I don’t really want to look at it. It’s making me feel green.”
“You are green,” Mercury teases, pressing their shoulder into him.
“Fuck off, mousey.”
“Hey!… What now?” Mercury asks. “Am I pardoned? Good to go?”
“They’re not shooting you, are they? Not arresting you?”
“No,” Mercury says. They watch the guards nearby closely. “So, we getting out of here or what?”
“Sure. We can use some of the gold to rent an apartment nearby?” Tal asks.
“Sure…” I promised Davil I’d be back tonight… Ugh… I’m sure it will be fine.
“Follow, mousey.”
“I told you to stop calling me that!” Mercury says, their neck burning as they walk out of the storage complex back into the cold open rain.
V
Tal sits down across from Mercury in the high-up apartment, the rain pelting against the outer window. The warm flicker of the lanterns was welcoming. “Your skills are just as impressive as I remember!” he says.
“Thanks, Tal. You’re not so bad yourself. A little rusty, slow, but all round a good bull,” Mercury laughs. “So, come Tal, tell me about your life! How’s Kal holding up? Last I heard, she was trying to become a doctor.”
“She is a doctor!” Tal says with excitement. “She studied well, and now she’s working for a clinic in the lower city. Bad kinds down there, but she wants to help the poor and innocent.”
“Anything to help the poor and innocent,” Mercury says, taking a sip from their wine. “This tastes like shit, bring anything else?”
“What? Whisky?” Tal laughs. “Yeah, I got some. It’s special, though!”
“Oooh, really hyping it up now, are ya? Fuck me,” Mercury giggles.
“Haa-haa! I mean, if you insist!” he ruffles through his bag, pulling out an expensive bottle of whisky. “Mama told me that one day I would need to make peace with someone I had wronged, and she gave me this bottle. I think it was destined for you.”
Mercury looks at the label of the glass bottle. “You’re kidding. That’s sixty-year-old brew.”
“I’m sorry about our reunion. Didn’t contact you for almost six years, and I approach out of the blue for a job.”
“Ahhh, don’t worry about it. I probably would have gotten you into trouble. You might have gotten beat up,” Mercury lets out a chuckle. “Remember that one time you tipped over the cart, and I broke my fingers?”
“Yes! Of course! Mama would never let me forget that. ‘That young Mercury probably would have married you if it weren’t for you breaking their wedding ring finger!’ she’d say.” He places a glass before Mercury and pops the cork on the whisky. “Just to think! Sixty years brewing and another forty sitting in the cabinet, just to be drunk by us!” he pours Mercury a glass. “I see you lost that arm. Recent?”
“Three months, I think. You know you lose count quick…” Mercury gently picks up the glass. “To broken fingers and missed opportunities!”
“Ahh, to drinking one-hundred-year-old whisky!” he downs his in a flash.
Mercury slowly sips from theirs. “It’s good.”
“Ah! Right!?” he wipes his mouth with his arm.
Mercury drinks the whisky down to a fingernail deep before tipping it along the gun. “Time to clean you off.”
“Eyy! That’s exquisite whisky!” Tal says.
“Which is why it’s gonna clean off my gun.”
“Khorvaire, not letting you get any more whisk-”
Mercury snatches the bottle from their hand and begins gulping it down. They lower it slowly from their lips and lock eyes with Tal, their cheeks beginning to burn.
“Careful, Mousey. You’re getting dangerous,” Tal chuckles.
“Tal, would you wanna…” Mercury bites their lip, looking down in embarrassment.
Tal leans forward, placing his whisky on the table. “Like old times?” he chuckles.
Mercury places their hand on the table. “Yeah.”
V
Mercuy’s eyes shoot open, finding themselves alone in the room. They swat their left arm to the side, grabbing a note and a small pouch left on the bed.
“Good luck, sweet tief… I’m sorry.”
Oh, for fucks sake. Mercury rolls out of bed, rapidly dressing as they hear the footsteps of many men walking through the hallways. They slam in six cartridges into the cylinder of their revolver, slapping it on the side to listen to it click. As they throw their coat on, a loud knock comes from the apartment door.
“Sharn Watch, open up!”
Fuuuuuuck. They point the pistol at the door. Five? Six? Not worth it… They move towards the window, looking outward to see a cargo ship taking off twenty feet below. Ah-ha-ah… Yeah, you’re doing this. Mercury runs to the apartment door and then runs full sprint at the window, shooting it four times before it breaks the magical barrier placed. Mercury leaps past the threshold of the window and begins falling, but not before a well-placed shot by a veteran guard finds its way into Mercury’s lower back.
To be continued…