It was years ago that the Stain swept through this accursed country. Those afflicted suffered a great and terrible disease, a pallidness of skin, an eternal tiredness, and a poison that infested any water they came into contact with. The Stain was difficult to catch, but impossible to banish.

Birkmoor was just one of many towns suffering from the Stain, a fishing town built of black stone, brick houses and cobbled streets mired in darkness.

It was a night like any other when Venatrix wandered into the poor town of Birkmoor. She was a strange woman, afflicted by the Stain like so many unfortunate others. Her skin, a muddy brown, was marred by scars of years past and covered in dirt emblematic of her long travel. Grey eyes scanned the environment from below her short black hair, and she wore a simple white tunic alongside black trousers, held by a red leather belt. A lantern hung from her hip, casting warm light into the darkness around her, next to a thin blade in its sheath. She carried with her a black umbrella, despite the few clouds in the sky, and in the air all about her seemed to cling a strange moisture.

Most striking of her dirty, elegant features was her left arm. Cut cleanly off above the wrist, she tied the end of her sleeve shut, resting it on the sheath of her blade.

Birkmoor was often mazelike in its layout, but its wide main road stretched directly to the heart of the town, a lone, towering mausoleum, covered in ancient ivy and timeworn moss. A stench of fish hung in the air like a foreboding presence, to be expected from a town such as this, but still unwelcoming.

Birkmoor was alive day and night, though the main road was all but empty this evening, illuminated in small spots by the candlelit streetlamps. In the distant streets of town, Venatrix could see the glow of firelight and hear the sounds of revelry.

“Y’can ‘ear ‘em, eh?” an old, decrepit man rested on a rocking chair, “The revelers, partygoers. It’s a grim life, lass, y’ought to be partyin’ with ‘em.”

Venatrix’s face showed no change or emotion, but her grip tightened nervously on the black handle of her umbrella, “I have no interest in parties, and parties have no need of me.”

“Is that so?” the man leaned forward, peering at the woman before him with a peculiar expression, “Carrions keep themselves to themselves, I suppose.” The man smiled at the sight of Venatrix’s intrigued reaction, “Oh, y’like that, eh? It’s the way you carry yerself, I can spot a Carrion a mile away. Here to purge us of some curse with yer magic, is that it?”

Venatrix had no answer for the man, though there was truth in his words, “A good evening to you, sir,” she bowed gracefully and carried on her way. This place, the haunting main road, had a foreboding air about it she could stand no longer.

“And a fine day to you, Carrion!” the man’s haunting laugh rung in her ears as she ducked away down a side road, passing by closed storefronts and houses with lights glowing in their windows.

Minutes passed as Venatrix searched for a place to stay, until at last she found herself at the doorstep of a small, well-built place called the Stillwater Inn. She knocked on the door to the building, a mossy dark wood entrance, and the door cracked open, a single brown eye peering at her through the gap.

“Read the sign!” the eye yelled at her, and a single hand pointed to the right of the entrance, where once a sign had clearly hung.

“I mean no offense, but there is no sign.”

“Eh?” the door opened a little further, and Venatrix saw the stained clothes of a little woman, staring at where the sign would have been, “Miserable little worms…” The woman muttered to herself, “We don’t give rooms to sick!”

Before Venatrix could get another word in, the woman had slammed the door in her face.

“You won’t get a welcome over there, ma’am,” Venatrix turned to find a well-dressed, middle-aged man in front of another inn, “Alvin’s the name, this inn here’s mine, and we’re plenty welcoming to the Stained.”

Venatrix walked across the street to the man and his inn, just as old, though a little cleaner, than the Stillwater Inn. A metal plate on the door told her its name, the “Sequestered Ivy Rooms and Bath”.

“It’s three bits for a room.” Alvin held out his hand, and Venatrix readily paid the fee, “Didn’t happen to catch your name.”

“Venatrix, good sir.”

“Well, Venatrix, I’ll get a bath ready for you,” Alvin led Venatrix into the creaky inn, illuminated by a single oil lamp on the desk, “you’re too pretty to be covered in mud like that.”

Despite her cold demeanor, a quiet wave of embarrassment washed over Venatrix at the compliment, and she managed only a meek “thank you, sir” before shutting the door to her room.

The room itself was a small place, with a single bed in the center sporting black sheets. The wooden floorboards, a lighter color than most wood in this town, were separating and two oil lamps on either side of the bed cast plenty of light across them. Venatrix folded her umbrella and hung it on a peg by the door, leaning her sword against the closet door and placing her lantern on the bedside table. A few minutes passed in peaceful silence before a knock came at her door, accompanied by Alvin’s voice.

“Sorry to interrupt, ma’am, but your bath is ready!” he called to her, “Got you some extra buckets of water, as well!”

“Thank you, sir.” Venatrix stepped out of her room.

“Just leave your clothes outside the door and I’ll wash them for you.”

“That’s very kind of you, sir.” Venatrix bowed and followed her host to the bathroom, stepping inside and shutting the door tightly behind her.

The bathroom was a somewhat dingy place with a single hanging lamp in the center, but the porcelain tiles of the floor and the wood paneling gave it a nice feeling. The tub set aside for her was filled with steaming hot water, and a number of jugs were set alongside it. A tap along the side could be used to empty the tub into a large basin at any time.

Stripping off her dirty clothes, Venatrix folded them neatly and set them outside the door as asked, sinking into the warm water. It felt indescribably nice, an almost blissful experience after such a long journey, to soak in a bath such as this. Ten, maybe fifteen minutes into her bath, the water had begun to change into a murky grey, and within twenty-five minutes the Stain had corrupted it into a disgusting blackish hue. She paused her scrubbing and quickly rinsed herself, emptying the bath into the basin and refilling it from the insulated jugs.

Twice more she was forced to pause and refill the bath as she cleaned, at last standing and drying herself on one of the available towels. She cracked the door to find her clothes, freshly washed and dried, folded neatly outside the door. She dressed quickly and pulled her hood back over her head, shuffling quietly towards her room. Inside, she shut and sealed the door tightly, taking a book from her few belongings and settling into bed as the sun rose, soon drifting off to sleep.

It was early into the following night when Venatrix awoke, roused from her sleep by the sound of knocking on the door.

“Ma’am? Sorry to wake you, but the sun’s setting again and I’ve yet to see you about,” the voice of her host reached her fuzzy senses. Stirring from her bed, Venatrix shook the weariness from her bones and opened the door.

“Apologies, sir. A Carrion’s work is best done at night.”

“I see…” a kind of solemn respect seemed to fill Alvin at the very idea, “…I’ve heard of the ancient curse-breakers, ma’am. Never imagined I’d be rooming one someday. Is there anything I can be getting you?”

“Yes indeed, sir. I’d like to know more of that dreadful mausoleum.” Venatrix gathered her things and left the room with the caretaker, following him down the halls and into the quiet dining room, illuminated only by the glow of a single oil lamp. 

“I don’t know much, just what my father told me, from what his father told him.” Alvin told her, setting out a bowl of porridge for the scrawny swordswoman, “It’s stood as long as anyone can remember, the tomb of ancient soldiers,” Alvin looked nervous even discussing the mausoleum, but pushed on with his explanation, “every couple years there’s this… evil that rises from it, and the old fighters come back.”

“Come back?”

“Aye. Dreadful things, rotted beasts in their ratty armor. They’ll kill anyone they set their eyes on,” Alvin continued, “but it’d cost everyone too much to move away now. What, are you fixing to pick a fight with the buggers?”

“I’m afraid I must. The curse’s power is swelling again, I can feel it in my very soul. Its power drew me here, it cannot be left unchecked,” Venatrix told him, “I must cull it at the very source.”

“You don’t mean to enter the mausoleum?”

“If I am to end this, there is no other choice.”

It took some time for Alvin to speak after that, but eventually he was able to force the words past his lips, “Look, I know you’re a Carrion, but going into that mausoleum, it’s suicide.”

“Perhaps it is,” Venatrix rose from her seat, pulling the hood over her head, “but to break old magic is my duty, and I must carry it out regardless.”

“I see,” Alvin nodded, “and if you mess up?”

“I have made mistakes before, sir,” Venatrix raised her missing hand to Alvin as she left, “I don’t intend to do so again.”

Alvin struggled to stutter out a response, but could come up with nothing before Venatrix had left, closing the door politely behind her.