1.6 KiB
Chapter One
"The Dilven Murder was the Beginning of the End for Upper Terria's Golden Age" - Iggram's Chronicles of Crime
The smell of spiced ryemain tingling my nose as I push through the patrons of the alleyway street mart. It smelled good, but the images in my head were twisting my stomach.
The Gershum temple's courtyard had been silent moments before; a groundsman named Hoffle had been tending the temple's chestilwood plants in the courtyard's garden, peeling back bark with a simple silver-cast blade. Zashrya, Hoffle's apprentice, was carrying dried bark into the temple's main hall to be crushed for new potions. The Gershum Order prided itself on simple living and neutrality. A refuge for those looking for healing and peace, even in the bowels of the undercity. Such was their devotion that even the hardest criminals didn't mess with this sacred space.
The blast was swift, cutting the peaceful air in jagged, fiery lines, as the thermobaric device consumed all in its brief, violent anger. A pit of scorched ground lies where once the peace and healing sang, hollow now in its tune. Hoffle and Zashrya were all but ash, as the temple of healing became a tomb.
As I climbed the stairs to my office, a case file in hand, the temple bombing in Cara made a little sense now as it did then. But that is why someone hired me. The Church wanted answers, and police investigations had stalled. It was now my job to learn why someone violated the sacred home of the injured and weak. People hired me when they needed answers, when all other avenues for justice had run dry, something that, unfortunately, is becoming more and more common.