Moons 2, 720th Year of the Imperial Age
LONGCOAT DEAD!
SALTY HEROES FREE DOCKS FROM GRIP OF TERROR!
By VAREHED WETFOOT
Staff Writer
For 120 years, the Longcoats murders hung over the Docks like a funeral shroud. Working women flinched from alleyways and darkened cul-de-sacs. But no more!
The first murders took place in the autumn of 596, a wintery season made worse by the killings of five prostitutes on the Docks. The City Watch could not be bestirred to help and although witness saw a man in a long coat at the scene of at least one murder, the case was never closed.
But now it has been! Earlier this fall, the murders began again, but this time, blood was matched with blood. Last night, a group of anonymous heroes of the Docks, who have as much saltwater running in their veins as blood, have done what the Watch would -- or could -- not. They have stopped Longcoat, running him down to his foul lair beneath the haunted Ten Bells tavern on Salt Spray Street.
Longcoat, these brave worthies told me, was an inhuman creature, whose lair bespoke of a lust for carnage and a hatred of all who live. Why he settled on prostitutes as his prey -- and where he went for 120 years between his waves of killing -- will have to remain a mystery.
These heroes -- no Delvers these, they include a humble priestess, a novice eunuch in the service of the shushing sisterhood, an unjustly accused minor criminal, an apothecary's apprentice and madam of a house of ill repute -- want no recognition for their service, nor acclaim, nor reward.
Service to The City is its own reward. We owe them our thanks.
