Downtown Druid

With the deal made, Dantes left Mez to his brewing and headed back to his cave. The trek was easy, particularly without the weight of the sack he’d carried on the way there. Once he was back in his cave he checked his ratmark and saw that one fang mark was full again, lit gold on his skin. The rats had clearly enjoyed the meal he’d offered them, and their god had granted his favor for it. He’d head back into the garden shortly to feed the plants his blood that they so desired, but he had other plans first.

It was going to take time for Mez to brew the first batch, and he wouldn’t want to approach the Consortium without something in hand; they tended to react poorly to that. He also needed more information on how things were going since he’d destroyed the Kings. If they were truly shattered, if they’d consolidated their power, or if just a small faction was left dedicated to killing him, he needed to know before he started showing back up again. He also wanted to see what he could do about Iron in the Mine. He still had bruises from the beating he’d given him, and he wanted to return the favor. He had other revenge he’d rather be focusing on above in Renhold, but, until he found his way out of the Pit, Iron would be his focus.

“Jacopo, I need to know what’s going on in the rest of the pit, will you be my eyes?”

Jacopo opened a single eye to look at Dantes. “Can’t you make the other rats do it?”

“I’m trying to save favor. Besides, you remember the dwarf that struck us both?”

Jacopo stretched and flexed his claws. “Yes.”

“I want him dead, or at least diminished, and the information we gain could help with that.”

Jacopo tilted his head, now fully awake. “What do you need?”

“I need you to travel through to the undermarket, then into dwarf territory. Listen to a few conversations, watch some goings-on.”

He stood, and hopped off his small perch. “You carried me on the last trip. I will carry you on this one.”

“You sure I’m not too heavy?” asked Dantes with a half-smile.

Jacopo regarded him with a blank stare.

Dantes shrugged and laid on his bed, focusing on seeing what Jacopo was seeing. There was a kind of handshake when his attention arrived at the rat’s mind. An acknowledgement that Jacopo knew that he was there.

Jacopo scurried quickly out of the cave and began making his way toward the Collared. He stayed mostly in cracks in the walls, or traveling through narrow passages too small for anything except other rats and those few roaches brave or stupid enough to travel in rat-tunnels. Dantes could feel the cold stone as Jacopo’s feet touched it, and even felt the strain as he squeezed through some of the narrower holes to reach his destination.

They reached the opening to the collared territory. There were two guards at the entrance instead of the usual one, and both seemed far more focused and aware than those guarding the entrance usually were.

Let’s look around here a bit

Jacopo heard Dantes’ words in his head, and complied, scurrying along the wall past the guards, who had no reason to trouble themselves over a rat. Inside the walls, the Collared all seemed more animated than usual. More of Merle’s closer disciples, those who joined him in his exercises, were out and about their massive forms looming over their narrower brothers. Otherwise things were much the same, aside from a higher tension in the air. A few of them were working on magical formulae, or trading books, some were working to repair the rickety plumbing system that they’d created, and some were gambling.

Dantes urged Jacopo toward the gamblers, and he moved toward them carefully, taking position between a pipe and the ground nearby where they were rolling dice. It was difficult to tell at the angle Jacopo was looking at them, but Dantes thought he recognized Pillion, Wane, and Tel at the table.

Pillion rattled dice in a cup, then slammed it onto the ground between the three of them.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“I’ll put up a bump of dust,” said Tel.

“I didn’t know you were into that stuff,” said Wane.

“I’m not, just happened to…find a bit at the undermarket. In all the commotion.”

Pillion chuckled. “Like I found that flask full of booze and Wane found that stack of old books.”

“Exactly like that,” said Tel. “That whole thing was crazy.”

“That it was,” said Wane. “I’m in for a stick of pre-rolled dwarf weed.”

“Can’t believe that asshole survived,” said Pillion. “I’ll put up Timore’s old grimoire.”

Pillion removed the cup and both he and Wane groaned, while Tel smiled widely.

“You guys are going to pay for my next visit to Which Wench at this rate.”

“We’ll see how the next roll goes,” muttered Wane. He scratched his beard. “How do you think he did it?”

“Well, I know he made the explosion with the magic mirror fragments. He showed me the mirror before everything went down. I’m the one that told him anything but pure elven blood would make it explode. Can’t say I expected him to do things the way he did though.”

“Even knowing that, how did he get it in all the right places and have them go off at the same time? I didn’t see him bleed on anything.”

“Is listening to this helpful or just masturbatory?” asked Jacopo internally.

“Masturbatory so far, but let’s give it another minute before moving on. If you’ll indulge me.”

Jacopo said nothing, but stayed where he was.

“Who cares? The Elfland Kings are done here, that’s what’s important. Clan Stonedust and the orcs tore them to shreds the moment they saw them faltering… Hopefully whatever of them survived will hunt that asshole down and gut him.”

“You’re lucky we like taking your money, or we wouldn’t let you talk so much shit.” said Wane, a touch of menace in his voice.

“Yeah, Dantes is a friend. Lay off,” said Tel with decidedly less menace than Wane had given off. Hard for a half-elf to compete with a half-orc in that department..contemporary romance

“Whatever,” replied Pillion, putting the dice in the cup and starting another roll.

Jacopo left after that, moving through the rest of the Collared’s territory without any trouble. In the corridors between there and the Collared, he moved through the territory of some of the smaller, non racial, gangs. He didn’t pass by close enough to actually hear anything, those groups tended to be hungry for rat meat, but even at a distance it was clear they were riled up and excited by what had happened the previous day. Voices were being raised, guards were more alert than usual, and goods were moving more freely between all of them.

At the undermarket Jacopo wove between a dwarven guard’s legs and immediately climbed the nearest rickety structure. He was far from the only vermin there. Other rats were eating chunks of viscera from the exploded elven kings, and smaller vermin, like roaches followed in their wake to pick at whatever was left.

The cleanup had mostly been left to individual storefronts, who had swept most of the corpses out into the passageways leading to the market, but due to the messy nature of their deaths, they couldn’t easily remove everything. Jacopo and Dantes saw a group of halflings, dwarves, gnomes, and a few kobolds all having a discussion toward the center of the market. Some of them were talking to sellers, others to gang members and leaders, and even more to each other.

Jacopo moved across rooftops until he was close enough to hear one of the conversations between a halfling and a gnome on the outskirts of the group.

“Obviously in the short term our profits are going to be down, but it’s hard to say how things will be without the Kings.”

“They definitely spent a lot at our bars, but let’s be honest they started so much trouble that it cost us a lot of business as well.”

“Not to mention that they had those damned magic mirrors so they weren’t as reliant on us as the other gangs. Has the council said anything about what they’re going to do about the shakeup?”

“Well, I heard that they’re considering putting a hit out on the guy that attacked the Kings. Diontes or whatever his name is.”

“For the damage he did to the market?”

“Yeah, but they’re torn on it.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, on the one hand violence in the markets at a large scale like this, it’s bad for business.”

“And on the other hand?”

“The Kings were a bunch of knife eared assholes, and for the most part the council hated them.”

The halfing shook his head. “I mean, who knows if the guy even survived. Council could just be wasting their time.”

The gnome shrugged, then gestured for the halfling to move a few steps away from the business in the center of the market. “You uh, got any dust?”

“Yeah, skimmed some off the newest shipment. Need a hit?”

Jacopo moved on from them. Neither he nor Dantes were interested in watching two smallfolk get high. They moved out to the edges of the Undermarket, where it connected to Clan Stonedust territory, catching a few more snippets of conversation along the way, and slunk into the dwarven halls.

done.co