Mean Streets

 "Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid." -Raymond Chandler 

The fellow named Jon Chess ran through the streets of the Dampwick Ward. The buildings were ramshackle, and the area was the most impoverished district of Boralus. Criminals and ne’er-do-wells rubbed elbows with Tidesage doomsayers and beggars. Unlike the mythical hero, Jon was both tarnished and afraid; that said, he was also resolute. 

At midnight, the killer known to the city guardsman as the Smile-Maker would practice his grisly trade, and the kidnapped Draenei priestess Vlana Starbow would be forcibly violated and her throat opened by the Smile-Maker's straight razor.  

It was perilously close to midnight.

Jon made haste though the streets and alleys, and most abroad gave him a wide berth - someone armed and moving with celerity and purpose did not promise much profit. He entered the open area near the docks, and was surprised to find the night market all but deserted.

“Ho there, fellow,” called a rough voice in Jon’s path. Three ruffians of the Scrimshaw Gang stepped from the shadows. Without looking around, Jon heard more noise behind him to both the left and right. Just over a half-dozen enemies, each armed with weapons ranging from broken bottles to knives to clubs to cutlasses and broadswords. Jon recognized the scarlet signs of membership in the Scrimshaw Gang.

The Scrimshaw Gang control much of the criminal enterprise in Dampwick Ward and hook Pointe; loansharking, smuggling, bribes, illicit drug peddling, pickpocketing, petty theft, mugging, and prostitution. Based in the Kelp Club, they controlled much of the underground commerce in Boralus.

“You seem to be in haste; bide with us awhile”, continued the leader of the mob. “We have been well-paid to… ah, entertain you with our hospitality.” The weapons being carried by his friends became more visibly brandished. 

As if summoned by magic, twin long daggers appeared in Jon’s gloved hands. He was swiftly cataloging how to proceed; a thick smoke grenade tossed to the ground, providing Jon with concealment, roll to the right, take advantage of the confusion to slit the throat of the leader’s flanking flunky when the portly leader became enveloped in a conflagration of fire.

“Our father often runs off for no reason, and explains matters later,” commented a fellow clad in green mageweave garments. A flaming rune was suspended over his short hair, dancing around his brow like a fairy in the moonlight. “He generally has a good reason, though.” Jon felt a spike of hope in his heart. His son Baron had come to help.

Before the Scrimshaw Gang could react, a crossbow bolt found a new home in the base of one of the backline member’s skull. A leather-clad fellow had fired and dropped his crossbow, armed with a Kul Tiran short boarding halberd. A huge wolf with a disreputable coat festooned with the detritus of nature growled alongside his partner. 

Jon’s other son, Bishop, and his partner wolf Mange closed in from the other end of the crowd.

“Father, leave these wharf rats to us - you have a lady to save,” said Bishop. 

Baron Chess, Dalaran-trained, raised a shield of flame. “No time to waste. We got this.” The members of the Scrimshaw Gang snarled almost in unison, and battle was joined. Jon’s smoke bomb detonated, obscuring Jon’s location as he invoked an Aarokoan cantrip, and he merged into the Shadows, wasting no time but trusting that his children were more than equal to running interference for their father.  

His heart swelled with pride even as he sprinted down the alleyway towards his rendezvous with a killer.

At the north end of the Ashvane Docks were a number of buildings used as warehouses and transitory businesses for the Commissioned Privateers whose seized cargoes were disposed of, often with no questions asked. It was not a coincidence that most privateers used the Ashvane Docks for their ill-gotten goods; the area was run by the Ashvane Trading Company, which had a long and notorious history of quasi-legal operations. Wholly spurious Bills of Lading, false Certificates of Provenance, and other forged documents were easily and anonymously available to grease the skids of commerce. The company had interests in virtually all aspects of the value chain of merchandise including weapons manufacturing, shipping, security, smuggling, and outright piracy.

It was the ideal place for a sociopathic serial killer like the Smile-Maker - he fit right in.

Jon’s destination was a building whose third floor was a small apartment with a wide patio deck. Jon felt sure that if he had a forensics mage on retainer in Kul Tiras, that he would be able to prove that the Smile-Maker abused and then killed his victims on that patio, secure in the neighborhood where people rarely looked up, and if they did, denied that they had seen anything. Often during his investigation, potential witnesses either refused to talk at all or had merely said “I did’na see nothing”.

Nearing the long, two-story warehouse that was almost the entire way across the Ashvane Docks, Jon mounted the stairs two at a time. He leaped atop a stack of barrels, and from the top of those, leaped to the covering rooftop of the second floor. Handy widows provided Jon with a ladder-like scaffolding to climb to the peaked rooftop of the second floor. 

He sprinted across the rooftop. The building he sought was now running in parallel with the building he was on, and Jon saw his chance. He ran down the roof edge, and leaped into the air, firing a Gnomish-made wrist harpoon. Less than a foot in length, the flanges of a grapple fell into place as the mithril-wire reinforced spider silk cord followed the grappling hook. Jon saw the grappling hook embed itself in a cargo crane arm attached to this destination, and triggered the mechanism for the harpoon device to retract the cord. The harpoon grappling hook held, and Jon was dragged forward. He dropped the device just as his hands found purchase on the waist-high perimeter fence of the deck area. He vaulted the fence and landed on the deck.

The Smile-maker turned to face him as Jon landed, perhaps fifteen feet away. The fellow was Kul Tiran, and had a mass of muscle forged by long days of slinging heavy crates and barrels on and off of ships. He stood a good head taller than Jon, and his shaggy hair, unkempt beard, mustache, and porkchop sideburns made him seem for all the world like a bear walking on two feet. He was clad in sea-leathers such as any Kul Tiran mariner wore. One of his hands gripped his trademark weapon, a straight-bladed Syndicate Dagger. The other hand was wrapped in the hair of his current victim.

Jon had discovered that the Smile-Maker had been purchasing blue-skinned “foreigners” - either Ren’dorei or Draenei women - from slavers. Slavery was technically illegal in the Alliance, but there were many places where the word “indentured servant” and slave were interchangeable, with forged indentureship agreements. Just up the Ashvane alley, so to speak.

His current victim had been an Emissary of the Light named Vlana Starbow, come to Boralus to heal the sick and feed the poor and indigent, much to the stern disapproval of the Tidesages, who otherwise had a firm hold of Kul Tiran spirituality; the official position of the Tidesages was that if something unfortunate happened to the Alliance Interlopers, that was just too damned bad.

The Smile-Maker had stripped his victim and drugged her to the gills to keep her pliable and quiet. Mercifully, she had lost consciousness and hung almost lifeless in his grasp.

“A knight comes to the rescue,” cried the Smile-Maker, bringing the knife to her throat. “Jon Chess, isn’t it, aping the fashion of Kul Tiras honest sailors? The lickspittle lackey of that Dalaran bitch who stole the Admiralty.”

“Jaina Proudmoore is every inch a Kul Tiran,” Jon said, drawing both his daggers. “As for my clothes, they have the advantage of being comfortable, given Boralus weather.” Mornings in Boralus were often cold and wet, with thick fogs that often did not burn away before the noon hour.

“Well, closer, little man… let's dance,” taunted the Smile-Maker. “I’ll have to clear my hands of this…baggage first though. Shame, too… I hadn’t quite had the chance to enjoy the foreign slut the way I did the others.”

“Well, put her down and I’ll put my blades down,” offered Jon. “That way once you kill me you can enjoy her afterward.”

“That is the first smart thing you’ve said yet,” smirked the Smile-Maker. “You first.”

One by one Jon let his daggers clatter to the deck underfoot.

“OK, your turn…” Jon started to say but was interrupted by the glove of ice that had instantly formed around the Smile-Maker’s knife, hand, and forearm.

“Wrong Dalaran bitch,” came Alia’s commanding voice from the rooftop, standing in front of a teleportation portal. “He’s MY lickspittle lackey, thank you very much - I just let Jaina borrow him!” She turned to Jon. “Take him.” 

The Smile-maker dropped the Draenei and reached for a weapon, but before he could draw it Jon’s flintlock pistol barked with its loud voice, and the ball tore itself a doggy door hole in the Smile-Maker’s throat.