Downtown Druid

Dantes stood over a bowl of heated water, trimming his hair with a sharpened dagger as he shifted through the perspective of rats, roaches, pigeons, and bats across the city. Everything seemed to be much as it had been over the last few days, until he started searching Uptown for Danglars. He was usually on his way into his office, but Dantes saw no sign of him. There were a half-dozen guards outside of his small mansion, but when he peered into the windows he saw no sign of the man himself, nor did the guards mention anything beyond that they were trying to find him.

He sent a rat to his office, with one of the vermin-enchantment bending keys. People were talking in hushed whispers and Danglars’s name made the rat’s ears perk up, as did the words murder, and flight.

Dantes dipped his dagger into the water to clear the shaving cream from it before raising it back to his cheek. Something had happened, something major, and Danglars was on the run. Dantes resisted cracking a smile to avoid cutting himself, but he couldn’t help it, his small smirk costing him a few droplets of blood from his chin. He sent out rats through Uptown to start searching for him or his trail even as he had the rat in Danglars’s office building move deeper toward his actual office. It was empty of people, but the files, decorations, and desk had all been torn apart. Papers littered the floor as did food and glass from a shattered bottle of brown liquor.

The rat moved out of the office and into the small alcove in which his secretaries worked. All three of them were there, a bottle of wine in one of their hands, blood covering another of them, her eyes red and splotchy as if she’d only just finished crying.

The one with the wine bottle, Desha Dantes remembered, leaned toward the one covered in blood. “Viv, you need to tell us what happened. We need to make sure we don’t say anything to the guard that can fuck us, understand.”

She nodded, still staring blankly ahead.

“Okay. Before you start crying this time, let’s go over what you said before. It was you, Danglars, Cerpin, and his secretary. Cerpin made an innocuous comment about Danglars slowing down on his drinking, and then the bastard lost his mind?”

She nodded, still staring blankly ahead. The other girl, a half-orc, stood at the edge of the alcove watching for anyone to approach.

“He lifted a small statue of the Father, and started beating Cerpin to death with it-”

“It took fifteen times. It sounded like someone mixing noodles by the end of it,” said Viv.

“Right. After Cerpin was dead, then what happened?”

“He… he stood there confused for a few seconds, looking at his hand. Then he said something about G. He said G and the gods would save him. That they had to.”

The woman standing watch spoke up. “G? The letters from the Temple of Many Gods?”

“Probably,” said Desha. “Did you tell the guard about that?”

Viv shook her head. “No. I didn’t say anything to the guard except that Danglars had beaten Cerpin to death and run.”

Desha nodded. “Okay… that’s good. You did good Viv.” She handed her the open bottle of wine. “Drink this and try to calm down.” She stood up and moved over to the other girl. “Yenn, what do you think?” she asked in a hushed tone.

Yenn picked at one of her tusks. “I think I’ll be glad I don’t have to dye my hair orange anymore.”

Desha chuckled. “No, I mean how much risk do you think we’re in?”

“None. We’ve already been making sure that all the paperwork we do only implicates him and not us. I don’t think what happened to Cerpin was related to anything we were involved in anyway. With how erratic he’s been… this is either something from within him, or another enemy we don’t know.”

“I think you’re right, not like he had a shortage of those.” she breathed out. “I thought it would be another year before we were rid of him.”

“Me too.” She looked at Viv. “Poor girl. She never really had the stomach for this stuff.”

“Would you have handled it better?”

“I’m half-orc. I’ve seen worse at family reunions.”

“Sure… a noble’s bastard has had such a bad time.”

“Fuuuck you.”

“Better me than Danglars.”

“I’m not going to miss that. I wonder if I’ll be able to find more secretary work.”

“I’m just hoping this doesn’t get in the way of becoming a magister myself.”

“Yeah. It definitely will. You have barely enough noble blood to be allowed to begin with.”

“There’s a way. I’m sure I can make it.”

“Yeah, that way is gold and you don’t have that either.”

Dantes cut his connection after all the applicable information seemed to have been gleaned. Danglars had lost it and murdered another magistrate before going on the run. G was likely Godfrey, though he hadn’t realized that Godfrey worked out of the temple. That made sense, the brothel that Mondego’s mirror connected to was near the temple of the many gods, and that was the area where Gaspard had said their initial meeting took place.

Dantes finished shaving, splashed some water into his face, and wiped it clean with a towel. He’d need to move quickly. The guard wasn’t always competent, but even they would probably eventually track down Danglars to the Temple of Many Gods. The temple itself had agreements with the city about harboring fugitives. They didn’t have to confirm that they had anyone harbored for a full day, and then they were allowed to hold them themselves for another full day after giving notice. Supposedly it was to help people avoid religious persecution, but in practice it was a way to give nobles and merchants more time to sort their affairs or make a run for it in exchange for a generous donation to the temple. A good racket, one that Dantes respected.

He slipped on his coat, letting Jacopo leap onto him and slide into a pocket, and checked his newly created arsenal as he flexed his arm. He would have to avoid using most of it if possible. He had enough enemies without making one of the temple. It served as a meeting place for all priests and worshippers of all gods, a typically very divided bunch, but if he made too much trouble he wouldn’t be surprised if the full force of it came down on him.

He traced a mental path for himself to the temple, using vermin to scan the path for any threats as he moved. The temple was nearly on the border between uptown, the guild district and a small sliver of midtown that lay between them. It was one of the only areas of Uptown that was freely accessible by almost anyone, and because of that was heavily protected by both the guard, as well as the temple’s private security.

He wove through alleyways and down narrow streets, keeping his hood up as he moved and morphing into a rat or a roach whenever he sensed trouble. Before long he was looking up at the high steeples of the temple. Aside from the Towers of the Academy, and the Founders Chambers in uptown, it was the largest and most impressive structure in the city. The front of it was stone carved into depictions of every god that they could think of. Each of them was painted with a myriad of colors, and that paint had never faded due to the ministrations and blessings of those priests that worked within the temple. The Father and Mother were at the top of the front door, looking down on every single man and woman as they entered, and Dantes spotted the god of Thieves further down on the father’s side of the building, painted deep black and standing next to his twin Greed who was wrought in bright yellow meant to depict gold. The temple rose higher than any nearby buildings, and all of the windows were stained glass depicting the myths and legends that surrounded the gods.

Dantes was not one who frequented the Temple of the Many Gods or even the area surrounding it. Sure, he’d begged priests to try and heal his mother when she’d been afflicted with the Wight’s Touch, but since they’d failed to do anything against that affliction, claiming it to be an affliction outside the will of the gods, but kept his money anyway, the last thing he’d done there was drunkenly piss on the front steps before running from some guards that spotted him.

From his memory though there were actually a number of ways to infiltrate the temple. He could climb the walls as a roach, slide through the catacombs below it as a rat, or even attempt to talk his way through one of the service entrances that surrounded the building. The easiest option, of course, was to simply move through the front door. It was still morning, and the daily service was just about to begin.