A Night in the Undercity

Radimir knelt in the darkness of the old tenement’s lobby and unzipped the body-bag he had laid against the shattered remains of an ornamental centaur fountain. His eyes traced the burly muscles of the Gruul halfbreed—its prominent jaw and ears bespoke of goblin heritage while the size of the thing hinted at trollish blood—and felt a spike of anger. Radimir briefly forgot Arrestor training as his thoughts turned to that night…

The thing’s filthy hands—no doubt covered in the blood of the innocent—running along Yulia’s slim form. The bestial grin, exposing jutting tusk-like fangs that had torn out countless throats to satisfy some base urge. Her throaty exultations to the Gruul halfbreed that quickly turned to screams when Radimir grabbed an ornamental lance and pounded the Gruul into unconsciousness.

A tumble of debris dragged Radimir from that unpleasant—yet oddly satisfying—recollection. The Arrestor glanced around and saw nothing out of place. He quietly rose and made his way to the arch doorway leading into the vine-chocked courtyard and waited. The minutes passed without any sign of Gruul, Golgari or Yore-folk in the area. Radimir looked back and felt a pinprick of panic—the Gruul was waking!

The Arrestor hurried back to his burden—drawing a vial and cloth from a pocket within his cloak—and dabbed the cloth over the stopper. Radimir quickly pressed the sedative to the Gruul’s nostrils. The Gruul twitched briefly then grew still; further down in the body bag, the other bundle stirred. The faint sound, like a mewling cry, enraged Radimir. The Arrestor kicked at it with the blunted toe of his boot. A spot of blood appeared on the beige-colored bag.

“What am I doing?” Radimir whispered. The Arrestor knelt beside the bloody spot and laid a hand over the lump. He dug in with his fingers, feeling the plump little arms and legs of a baby. Not a human baby, he knew. It might feel human, but it wasn’t his. There wasn’t any soft, pink flesh nor cherubic cheeks gracing the child’s face. Radimir knew its skin was a sickly grayish-green and covered with a soft layer of scales…

Yulia’s labored screams were like daggers to Radimir’s ears; they slowly stabbed at his brain, piercing the thoughts flying through his head faster than a roc in heat. What will the Elocutors say when they see it? Radimir wondered. The Arrestor looked at his fellow Arrestors from the Lyev division of the Azorius Senate. They wore their civilian clothes—blue tunics with white pants—and chatted with their colleagues while their wives gossiped and took bets on whose baby blanket Yulia’s baby would favor.

The vedalken midwife stepped into the waiting room. Radimir had turned from the window and felt his stomach drop out from under him even as his heart jumped into his throat. There, with the midwife, was another vedalken in Simic biomage attire. The bald, blue-skinned humanoid hurried toward Radimir with an eager gleam in his eyes. Spidery fingers gripped the sleeve of Radimir’s shirt, pulling him from the waiting room and down the hall to Yulia’s room. None of the biomage’s words registered with Radimir; the blood spattering the midwife’s apron had sent his thoughts down a dark tangent.

It seemed to take an eternity for the midwife to ease open the door to Yulia’s room. Radimir broke from the biomage’s grasp and ran into the room. He stopped at the foot of the bed and took it all in: Yulia laying there with the hideous, subhuman beast in her arms, a grin on her face.

She’s laughing at me, Radimir had thought. He felt as if he had broken out into a cold sweat. His fingers twitched at the thought of strangling the abomination. You failed as a husband and you’d fail as Head Arrestor! Radimir tightened his hands into fists then relaxed his fingers, feeling his tension and anger draining away. As a member of the Senate, I must maintain impartiality. A grin—forced, though Radimir hoped Yulia wouldn’t know it was forced—spread across Radimir’s smooth facial features. He extended both hands and walked toward his wife and his keyrune to the office of Head Arrestor.


Yulia’s abomination stopped its squirming. Radimir rose and returned to the arch doorway. All quiet, Radimir thought. He took a closer look at his surroundings, picking out the crude graffiti of the Scab-Clan and Ghor-Clan. Which of you would claim that thing? Radimir wondered.

A large figure rounded the stone gate post and entered the courtyard. Radimir felt a twinge of fear at the sight of the burly Rakdos. It had to be an ogre—its body was far too large to be human, but too small to be one of their giants—however the stylized skull mask covered the cultist’s face, making it impossible to be sure. Radimir’s trained eye marked the numerous chains; they seemed to be attached at the shoulder and ended with hooks. Rather than dragging the hooks along the ground, the cultist had attached them to metal rings drilled into the skin of the cultist’s upper back and arms.

In that instant Radimir felt helpless, naked, without his arms and armor. This is what you wanted, Radimir. All or nothing. Radimir wiped at the sweat he felt on his back. He imagined that he could smell the sweat; certainly the cultist would too. The Arrestor stepped into the courtyard and said in a shaky voice, “Hail, Flailer.”

The cultist chuckled, throaty and deep. “Close enough. Are you our ambitious Azorius?” He crossed his thick arms over a chest rippling with muscle.

It could snap me in half with one hand, Radimir thought as he backed into the lobby to retrieve the Gruul and its get. The Arrestor nearly tripped over the hem of his cloak as he hurriedly lifted the body bag and slung it over his shoulder. When he emerged into the sunny morning, Radimir was drawn to the ogre’s eyes. Beneath the amused gleam was the undercurrent of violence that existed in all the Rakdos Cultists. It’s nothing but a belligerent street brawler in combat. Look at those chains; you could detain the dumb brute and slit its throat in a heartbeat.

Radimir nodded in response to the cultist’s question. The cultist turned and motioned for Radimir to follow. He studied the ogre’s posture for any indication that it was planning to lead him into an ambush and found his eyes drawn to the myriad scars and stitches crisscrossing the ogre’s back. The Arrestor’s fingers twitched; he tightened his jaw to stop the sudden tremors.

Radimir’s free hand darted to the inner pocket of his nondescript cloak; his fingers brushed the stylized bird-wing handle of his keyrune. He cut his eyes to the rubble and ruin to either side and back to his guide. The ogre didn’t seem to give a whit for a twitchy Azorius; Radimir slipped the keyrune free of the cloak pocket and held it down at his side. His fingers found the trigger hidden between the keyrune bird-ornament’s wing and body. A sudden breeze hit Radimir, raking through shoulder-length black hair that framed his lean face. He shivered at the wind’s cold touch. It whistled through the decrepit dwellings and outcroppings of blasted road. The Arrestor’s eyes widened at the sounds carried on the wind; he heard their cries…

Radimir crouched in the gloomy reaches of the old warehouse; a sneer crawled across his handsome features at the sight of the Boros priest and Selesnya cleric below. The corpulent priest was sitting cross-legged, stuffing his sweaty face with chocolate confections; the Selesnyan dryad was chained to a pillar of iron. Radimir’s ears had gone deaf to her shrieks as the demon-forged pillar slowly burned into her skin. Thankfully the Arrestor couldn’t smell her singed flesh.

An imp with wrinkled flesh and a hinged jaw flapped into the center ring, pulling in a cart painted in black and red checker patterns. Radimir set his jaw and drew a pair of keyrunes from the holsters slung about his hips. A petite figure in tight leather that called attention to her sensual, pleasing features entered the ring. Her ornate headdress identified her as a blood-witch. Radimir felt a chill ripple through his being and his heart seemed to quicken. He squeezed the trigger on either keyrune, cracking the casings of the Izzet-made mana cartridges in the keyrune’s blade.

Everything would be fine; there was no escape for Blood-Witch Iskra, Radimir thought as he gathered the gaseous wisps of mana about the steel fingers of his gauntlets and formed them into a pair of birds. With a flick of his fingers he sent them through a busted window just over his shoulder. Fortunately…nothing fortunate about it, Radimir thought as he glanced back to the ring; Iskra had stripped the Boros of his official robes and pulled him to stand before the thrashing dryad. Her screams leapt in pitch as the Boros screamed, “Chocolate! Chocolate!”, and dug into her shapely belly. The audience, sitting in the shadows cast by the wrinkled banners of cured flesh stretched around blazing torches, howled with delight and sensual ecstasy. Radimir scowled and turned his attention to the jester-imp’s cart. He felt his heart leap into his throat.

That’s it, then. The Arrestor grabbed a discarded, dusty blanket and pulled it around his silver and azure-trimmed cuirass. He gripped the leather-wrapped handle of his bastard sword as he made his way down the flight of stairs between the packed benches. Radimir noted several Azorius dignitaries among the audience; the senators and bureaucrats wore piss-poor disguises.

Applause thundered as Radimir stepped onto the show floor. Iskra turned from the snuff show—the priest currently shoveling the dryad’s innards into his mouth, drool trailing from his lips—and walked toward him. Radimir tried to keep his eyes on her sallow face and thought of Yulia. Yulia’s gentle smile, her love of proper clothes that all nice women wore…The ripped velvet, satin and silk dresses and undergarments; her panting as she gave herself to the Aureliadamned Gruul…and the Arrester found himself drawn to Iskra’s bosom, her sinewy arms that seemed to be all muscle, her coquettish smirk.

“Have you come with a grievance, sir?” Iskra said. “Here you’ll not find cowards that reward your courage with a beating.”

Radimir didn’t hear; the outrage, shame and embarrassment at his wife’s infidelity had seized his thoughts and rendered him speechless. Beneath the banners of skin, the meat hooks strung about with dripping lengths of intestine and tipped with spleens and livers, it hit Radimir: Yulia thinks I’m a chancery dullard!

“So you find yourself in the same predicament as our friend?” Iskra gestured to the Boros priest, who had fallen to his hands and knees, panting. “Problems with a female companion; a spouse or daughter?”

Radimir gulped and touched his makeshift cowl. His finger came away wet and he glanced up; a spleen impaled on a meat hook had been dripping with bile. His gaze went to Valgrya’s hands; in the right one he she held a dagger stylized to resemble a horned figure with a voluptuous body. Its tip—the figure’s pointed feet—crawled with a black semi-gaseous semi-liquid substance.

Before Radimir could draw his bastard sword, Valgrya leapt at him. In an equally quick, precise motion, she laid the flat of the blade against the spot on Radimir’s cowl where the spleen bile had soaked in. Her eyes rolled up so that all Radimir could see were the whites. He quickly looked to the imp’s cart—full of bewildered looking children—and tried to figure out what kind of families they came from.

A blur of bakers, smiths, haberdashers and welders flashed through Radimir’s mind, wrapping around the memory of his shame at Yulia’s filthy hands. The chill intensified before a pleasant warmth began at its edges until Radimir felt as if he had a fever. A sharp cramp—like he’d thrown out his back—dropped Radimir to his knees. Iskra followed him down and steadied him with a firm hand. Radimir felt a number of sharp, pinprick pains all over his body as the Blood-Witch cut through his mental barrier.

“So it’s your trained whore of a wife, then.” Iskra sighed. “You poor thing.”

She..she’s right, Radimir thought has he heaved with nausea. She’ll be laughing at me, too. Radimir managed rose on wobbly legs and gasped: men in skull masks framed with horns were lumbering into the ring with the cart. They were bound in chains attached at the shoulders, pulling a ash-colored dragon. Its eyes were an angry red and its wings were bound in similar chains. The pit-dragon’s nostrils flared and its head darted about, snapping and snarling.

“There must be some Izzet in tonight’s audience,” Iskra said, stroking her chin. She glanced at the spectators; Radimir took the chance to sidle away from the Blood Witch and began to slide the bastard sword from its scabbard. “My beloved isn’t usually this aroused.”

Iskra returned her attention to Radimir, grinned at the sight of him edging toward the pit-dragon, and grabbed a nearby length of chain. A deft flick sent it at Radimir and around his waist. With a quick tug, the Blood-Witch pulled Radimir to her and felt the press of his half-drawn blade. The Blood-Witch grabbed the hilt and thrust the blade back down into the scabbard.

“We can’t jump the wurm just yet. Look at them,” Iskra waved a hand at the audience. Radimir didn’t look; he watched the handlers pull the pit-dragon closer to the imp’s cargo of children. To his slack jawed amazement, the children seemed enthralled by the hellish beast. A strong hand grasped his chin and turned his head toward the spectators. “They wait with baited breath for the sort of salvation only we can provide.”

Hurry up, Aureliadamnit! Radimir searched for any sign of his fellow Arresters. Where the Hellhole are you slugs? He glanced back at the kids; the first of them had climbed over the edge of the cart and was toddling toward the pit-dragon. She stumbled, fell, and started crying. The imp-jester picked her up, kissed her and whispered something in her ear.

“Look now, all of you!” Iskra screamed at the spectators. Radimir was taken aback at the honest rage he saw in the Blood-Witch’s clenched fist and the throbbing vein in her forehead. The Blood-Witch pointed at the little girl, standing beside the pit-dragon. She was barely able to pet the top of its head, though its chin rested on the ground. Its lips quivered and Radimir felt its snarl deep in his chest. A red mist had begun to leak from the pit dragon’s eyes.

“A child left orphan when the Orzhov evicted her parents from their hovel of an abode!” Iskra dashed up to the girl, pricked her palm with the stylized knife, and licked the blade. Her eyes rolled back into her head. The pit-dragon’s snarl deepened as the child began to cry. Radimir saw it in his mind: blood and body parts everywhere as the dragon rampaged, killing, slaughtering at random. He shook his head to dispel the morbid fantasy.

“Sold into the flesh trade by deluded Yore-Cultists and finally rescued by our Splatter Thug mercenaries.” Iskra’s lips tugged down into a frown and her eyes began to shine with tears. “All she ever wanted was to see a real life dragon.” Tears fell from Iskra’s eyes. “Why would this child and indeed, all these children—” she indicated the other children climbing over the sides of the cart and, with an imp’s help, reluctantly approaching the pit-dragon “—wish to be in the presence of such a magnificent killer?”

Radimir took in the spectators: some had stunned, guilty looks or were looking at their neighbors with narrow eyes, veins throbbing in their temples with clenched, shaking fists while others were leaning forward expectantly. He scowled at the sight of the good people, turned savage by the demon-follower*’s witchery.

“I’ll tell you why,” Iskra swept the audience with her imperious gaze. “You!” she pointed at the audience. “Your games and Guild-driven agendas created these broken souls.” Iskra snapped her fingers. The men hauling the dragon thrust out their arms; clouds of blood burst around them as spikes ripped through their skin, breaking the chains. The pit-dragon shook its head and lunged at the flock of children.

Radimir drew his bastard sword and ran at the dragon as its jaws clamped tight on a pudgy leg and began thrashing with its powerful neck muscles. His strike was thrown off as one of the handlers tackled Radimir. He struggled against the man, spitting, digging his gauntleted fingers into the raw flesh of the man’s arms and chest.

The man spoke a guttural word and Radimir was sprayed with blood as spikes tore free of the man’s flesh, hitting Radimir’s armor and stunning him. He lay helpless; the children’s shrieking was soon overtaken by a loud roar. He craned his neck and saw the audience had fallen upon one another. Sinewy Rakdos cultists were moving among the audience, tossing hooks, blades, scythes and pitch-forks out at random.

“You look upset, Azorius.” Iskra knelt beside Radimir and traced his jaw with a slender finger. “Better they get this out of their system than create more of those—” the Blood-Witch nodded her head at the broken bodies and glistening red, pink and white masses. “Or those.” Iskra indicated the Guild-folk who were ripping one another to pieces with either their bare hands or their Rakdos-supplied implements.

The pit-dragon’s frenzied butchery began to kick up some dirt and dust. Something wet landed beside Radimir. The cacophony of the snuff-show flooded Radimir’s ears. He cried out and thrust his head to the side, burying it into the foul-smelling mass to drown it all out. The children don’t deserve this; Radimir thought as he sought the reassuring deafness and darkness of the mass. They need the Conclave’s healing houses. They need the Combine’s medical knowledge.

Radimir finally lay still; the screams, the shrieks and wet ripping sounds weren’t as bad now. The pile of flesh, bone and blood he’d found refuge in moved. It let out a low, bleating cry. Radimir let a scream rip from his throat until it was hoarse. Afterward he lay there until he heard the rhythmic beat of his fellow Arresters marching down the aisles and onto the snuff-show floor. Strong hands pulled Radimir up from the gore-spattered floor. He blinked as he took in the carnage; the words of those Arresters at his side faded into nothing as he saw the pulped and shredded faces of the children and the Guild-folk.

Radimir felt himself being dragged from the snuff-house; before his rescuers rounded the corner with him, he saw her: Yulia tied to the demon-forged pillar. Radimir smiled.

The undercity is the Dimir neighborhood.

This entire fic seems to be "everyone died in a gory, plotless manner."

The Undercity is the domain of several guilds.
Orzhov, Rakdos, Dimir, and Golgari all.

@Story: I'll give you a more robust critique later. When it isn't 4 in the morning.

I feel like I've read this before... Did you post this on the mothership once, or is it a continuation of something else I've read?

I... Really don't know how I feel about it. There are a few awkward wordings here and there and there's a random asterisk, but as far as the story is concerned... I don't know. Sorry.

You may have seen it on the old boards, 42. Interesting response; can you be specific about your feelings in terms of the story? Perhaps you have some suggestions for improving it?

I wrote this to get acquainted with Radimir. I've got a vague backstory worked out for him. Yulia's parents were members of the Cult of Yore, and opened a church in the Ravnican wastelands (religious reasons for their choice in location; it's a primal place ripe with the decay of Guildpact-bound mana and the rebirth of raw mana unbound by the Guildpact). Some Gruul took offense and started warring with the Yore Cultists. Radimir found Yulia in the smoking ruins of the church, frightened, and believed that it was his duty to take her as his wife to fulfill the "knight in shining armor" thing. I'm vague on that, but Radimir's colleagues look down on him for taking Yulia as his bride. He even loses his rank in the Azorius and is forced to fulfill his chivalrous calling as a member of Hazda.

Yulia, despairing for Radimir, decides to help him gain some leverage over the Azorius by seducing a powerful Gruul warchief. She hopes that Radimir can use the warchief's child to take control of that particular faction of Gruul. These Gruul have been a constant thorn to the Azorius and Boros. Unfortunately, Radimir happens upon Yulia in the midst of her affair with the warchief, and subdues the warchief with the intent of killing him.

Feeling betrayed, Radimir drifts through the Undercity following up an old case in hopes of forgetting about Yulia's infidelity. He strikes a bargain with a Rakdos guildmage: the warchief and his offspring (for some spellwork) in exchange for the whereabouts of the Blood Witch Iskra. Which would lead into the flashback in the OP. Afterward, we'd rejoin Radimir with his body-bag, heading for a rendezvous with that Rakdos guildmage he bargained with.

I think I did read it back on the mothership, and then never got around to giving any feedback. For that I apologize.

I think it's that the main character, Radimir, isn't someone I can even like, much less relate to. That's not to say it's bad (after all, there's not a single likeable character in Breaking Bad, but the show itself is marvelous), but I just have trouble getting into it.

I am, however, interested in knowing where this goes. Maybe I could get more into it once there's more to it -- I have a definite bias toward longer stories (especially those that are book-length [~200K+ words]).

I didn't write down the wording problems I came across, though, so I'd need to re-read it if you'd like my suggestions (and specify that you do; I tend to misunderstand). Just keep in mind I can't really give you anything more than a basic grammar check -- besides not generally knowing how to give thorough critiques, we have some actual, professional people around here to offer them, so I'll leave the thorough ones to them.

Not how it worked. Had to chime in on that.

The Guildpact was sustained by the Selesnyans, not mana.

I'm a little confused. Are you talking about during the Guildpact-era, or the time in-between when it fell and when we got RtR?

Yes. During the Guildpact era, the guildpact was sustained by the fused dryad elemental Mat'Selesnya and channeled the faith of everyone connected to the lifesong (which was a LOT more than those actually who were officials of the church) to sustain the pact.
It also had the side effect of keeping the population docile. Which is why the Selesnyans were strung from the towers when the pact broke.

Oh, that's what you meant. I knew about the original trilogy info -- I was under the impression that Mat'Selesnya was largely apart from the Selesnyan guildmembers, though, so I misunderstood.

See, I still don't rightly know what all happened (and where the source material is) for the time in-between Dissension and Agents of Artifice. The only place I've ever even heard about what happened to the Selesnyans is here (or, you know, the old F&S).

Agents of Artifice talked about exactly how badly people took having their minds mucked with and how violently people reacted when the paper pact proved ineffectual.

It's an embellishment; the idea is that the Guildpact exerts a field across heavily civilized areas that prevents anyone affiliated with the Cult of Yore from accessing the local mana.

Thanks, 42. I have had the same initial reaction to some of the protagonists I've encountered in various fantasy novels. I imagine that's what influenced Radimir.

But that's not true and you shouldn't put forth information in a story that you know isn't true. You perpetuate invalid information.

Would having certain guild members who've dealt with the Cult of Yore casting a type of "enchant world" spell be an acceptable substitute for my idea of a Guildpact-based field?

It hit me that I was thinking about Guts, from Kento Miura's magnificent manga, Berserk, when I mentioned protagonists who aren't entirely likeable. It's probably what influenced my depiction of the carnival.

You might be able to pull off a Suppression Field but it wouldn't hit just the Cult.

What about something like Hall of Gemstone...there'd have to be something that could affect strictly the Cultists on a psychic level. Maybe a certain herb or brew taken by the Cultists has altered their CNS, and this hypothetical enchantment can sniff out those alteration and shut off their access to the mana?

When something exists, it is easiest to use what is already there.
But beyond that, the cult cares about every color, as demonstrated by cards like Might of the Nephilim and Blessing of the Nephilim.
With the other direction you're talking about, no enchantment could really do that, in part because mana isn't something that interacts with the nervous system. The only thing we've seen that could cut off a person's connection to mana are artifacts that cut the bonds from people, but in each of those situations, it did not distinguish and effected everyone it dealt with.

Reading through this story left me lost. I had no idea what the actual sequence of events was. The carnarium scene alone confused the heck out of me--it was never clear to me what he was there for in the first place, why he walked down to the ring, why he suddenly collapsed and became almost completely passive and ineffectual, or what any part of that scene had to do with the rest of the story.

There's also a number of lines without any apparent purpose acting as non sequiturs. For example, the moment where Radimir imagines the pit-dragon going on a rampage--why is that line there? It certainly has no effect on Radimir, because he remains completely passive until the dragon actually breaks loose just a few paragraphs later.

Thanks for giving it a read, GrifterMage.

The flashback to the carnarium is Radimir reflecting on a time when his hesitance cost others their lives. Up to that point he's fingering the trigger of his keyrune, unsure if he should risk the flailer seeing him calling for assistance. Radimir went to the carnarium with the intent of arresting Blood Witch Iskra; he walks down while the audience is caught up in the euphoria of the show. Do you have any suggestions for adding clarity without me being too blunt about it? Radimir's imagining the pit dragon breaking free is included to show what he fears could happen if his attempted arrest is botched.

Radimir's an ineffectual character. Look at his reponse to Yulia's infidelity; he kills her lover intended to kill the child she'd had with the Gruul.

The purpose or reason for the flashback isn't so much as implied anywhere--he fingers the keyrune and then jumps into the flashback without any reason. Calling for backup doesn't even make sense--he's standing there with a sleeping body and a baby in a bag, there to make some sort of no doubt illegal deal--why on earth would he ever call for assistance from Azorius arresters?

And in the Carnarium he's not attempting to arrest anybody. Look at what he does--he walks down to the floor, then stands there lost in thought while Iskra asks him a couple questions, then she jumps at him and he collapses to his knees. He sidles away from her for a second before she jumps at him again and starts screaming at the audience while he just stands there. The dragon's released and he jumps toward it before being tackled by a handler--he struggles for a moment until the handler gives him one blow that hits his armor, but somehow renders him unable to stand or move while still remaining completely conscious. Iskra bends down and says something to him and he buries his face in a pile of meat. Then he screams when it moves, but doesn't remove his face. And he just lies there until he's pulled out by Arresters. And then for some reason he fantasizes about his wife being tied to the pillar and smiles.

Never does he give a single word or thought about arresting anybody, never any actions towards that end beyond walking down to the floor. Actually, he doesn't say anything throughout the whole sequence--the only words he says in the entire story are "What am I doing?" and "Hail, Flailer."


From your other posts here it seems like you have a decent layout of what's going on and why, but none of that's conveyed within the story itself.