The Daily Doon - Lawrence Mortimer De Crim

Doon is a sprawling cosmopolitan metropolis set in a world called Theon (or Theon World, a play on The Known World). Doon was, at its founding, a merchant city, established at the heart of a trade route on the eastern side of Theon. Within it is the most diverse host of peoples found anywhere in the known world, and has been at the center of many tales in which I've devised.

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Squib
The Year Of The Bear

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Lawrence Mortimer De Crim was in it now, or out of it if he’d done his math correctly. One trip to the privy was all it took, and from the strewn body parts and overall carnage of the room, there wasn't likely any recourse.

“Oh no, oh-no oh-no oh-no.” Lawrence chanted as he stepped cautiously over dead bodies and around destroyed furniture. The boss would be angry, if the boss were still alive. Lawrence found him seated behind his desk, his face flush with the wood in an expansive pool of blood. He gave him a prod with the butt of his pike, half expecting him to snap with annoyance. But the Boss only creaked as his weight shifted in his chair.

“Oh no.” Lawrence was at a loss. The whole gang was dead. Shifty Cleese had a half volley of bolts in his chest. Buckles was pinned to the wall with a hand and a halfs worth of sword holding him there. Low Ball Nineties was crumpled over on the floor, missing a leg. Who-Knew-Strew looked mostly alright, except for the hacking great mess a garrett had made about his neck. There were others beside, not even including the score of unidentified fellas that had lost their lives initiating the assault.

“Oh no, oh-no oh-no.” Lawrence put his hands up to his face and turned slowly, taking it all in. What was he to do now?

There was a cough.

Lawrence dashed across the room, his pike banging over obstacles as he stumbled in his brightly coloured pant legs and solid metal breastplate. The enormous plume of feathers atop his floppy hat swooped in front of his face before he righted himself.

“I’m here!” He burst with distress as he slid to his knees before a pile of bodies. The pike clattered to the floorboards. With a heave of might, Lawrence peeled back corpse after corpse in search of life.

Another cough.

Laying at the base of it all, Lawrence found a short man in a well to do suit with buttoned vest and blue and yellow striped tie. The man opened his eyes and peered up through narrowed lids, the light of life faded about his irises.

Lawrence instantly recognised him, it was Bob Kennelly, the Boss’s accountant.

“Kennelly, what the hell happened?”

Kennelly coughed. “Is it bad?”

Lawrence looked down to Kennelly’s chest. The hilts of seven daggers stuck out from his chest, pointing accusingly much to Lawrence’s horror. He held his face, a look of terror in his eyes but an otherwise resolute vaseer to his jaw. “Naw, I’ve seen worse.” He nodded, in the way a man does when he steps out of a tavern to find his horse missing. “Wait!” He lifted the stray arm of a deceased man beside Kennelly’s waste to discover an eighth dagger protruding the accountants side. Lawrence gasped.

Kennelly coughed, “I knew it.” He coughed again, blood bubbling past his lips.

Lawrence found Kennelly’s hand and clutched it between his own. “Hold on friend, we’ll get help.” An empty platitude, Lawrence realised, the moment he’d said it. But by gods he’d meant it!

Kennelly shook his head, “Nevermind all that.” His voice came shallow and croaky, he coughed a little, struggling to find the breath for his final words. Lawrence couldn't help but shed a single tear from the corner of his eye- but held his pride, welled in his chest, for Kennelly’s sake.

“At least tell me who did this?” Lawrence pleaded, the idea of making oaths of vengeance passing suddenly through his mind. Everyone else was dead, it seemed to make sense that the job should befall him. Though he wasn't entirely confident there was anyone left with whom to avenge.

“Listen, I’m not long for this world.” Kennelly reached up with a feeble hand and grabbed the collar of Lawrences breastplate, dragging him closer. “I need you to do something for me.” He coughed.

“Anything. Name it.” Lawrence locked eyes with Kennelly, feeling his sense of pride swell.

Kennelly reached in passed his lapel and produced a letter. “I need you,” cough, “to deliver this for me.” The letter exchanged hands, and Lawrence cast his set of glistening eyes upon it.

“Of course.” He nodded, clutching it tightly and drawing it close to his breast. “If I may, what is it, so I may know it’s degree of import’?”

“It’s the tax returns. I hadn’t quite got to filing them.”

“Oh..” Lawrence deflated a little.

“Thankyou, Lawrence Mortimer De Crim, you are truly an honorable man. Even if no one really liked you.”

“Pardon, what?”

And with that, Kennelly died.