Downtown Druid

Dantes moved quickly and comfortably through the outskirts, shifting through narrow passageways, and avoiding sealed passages and dead ends. This was a more frequently tread path for him, one that he didn’t need much thought to move through. It had the added benefit of being rarely traveled by anyone except for him. The kobolds would approach from a different direction, and while he’d occasionally seen a random orc or drunken dwarf with Mez, none of them would’ve approached from Collared territory and taken his path. This meant he could relax, at least as much as was possible for him.

The trek loosened his muscles and he started finding some relief from his soreness. He began to extend his perception around himself, sensing rats, mosses, mushrooms, roaches, and all sorts of other critters surviving on the fringes of the Pit. Before he’d often thought of the Pit as devoid of life, and empty of anything of value, but he had no such misconceptions now.

“What are we doing?” asked Jacopo from one of Dantes’ jacket pockets.

“Heading to see a contact of mine.”

“To feed? The fruit would go much further with me and other rats.”

“No, the fruit is for him to use to make booze.”

“Booze?”

Dantes scratched his chin. “You know in the Undermarket, the buildings with a strong smell that people gather at?”

Jacopo was silent for a moment, and Dantes could feel him searching both of their thoughts. He attempted to send an image of one of the bars to Jacopo’s mind.

“Yes. I know this place.”

“You ever drink from one of the cups that fell on the ground? Sip from a puddle near it?”

Jacopo nodded, an expression Dantes could feel, but not see as he ducked under a partially collapsed doorway.

“Yes. It caused my vision to blur and I proceeded to the nearest female for mating.”

Dantes inclined his head. “Yes, booze definitely has that effect on some.”

“You wish to have it made for yourself?”

Dantes shook his head. “Some of it, maybe, though I need to stay sharp for now. No, I need it to trade.”

“For what?”

“Dust, weed, favor, coin if they have it.”

“Why not simply take those things?”

“I’ll be doing that too, but it helps to have a semi-legitimate trade going as well. Trading the booze will give me more opportunities to steal, kill, bribe, manipulate, and control.”

Jacopo scratched himself behind the ears. “You and your people are very complicated.”

“Only when we aren’t desperate. The more we have the more complicated we make things to have more until we have layer upon layer of complication. When I was first thrown into the Pit, things were much simpler. Now they’re becoming complicated for me again.”

“And if others come to take what you have the simple way?”

“Then I’d have layers of complications to protect me.”

“And if they don’t?”

He shrugged. “Then things get simple again.”

Jacopo scurried from one pocket to another across Dantes’ back.

“I’d like some of this booze when you receive it.”

“Keeping things simple?”

“At least until I begin running on two legs. Then I may add complications.”

Dantes chuckled. “Fair enough. I’ll make sure to set some aside for you.”

They made their way through a few more tunnels when Dantes slowed down. He’d reached the edges of where Mez kept his traps. Luckily, Mez was the only Kobold who never updated or moved them. He made them more out of cultural habit, than because he wanted to. His energies had always been focused elsewhere.

Dantes made his way around the falling rock trap, the skitterling pit where the skitterlings had long since begun resorting to cannibalism due to lack of food, and ducked under the already triggered, but not reset, spear trap that had pinned a cobweb riddled skeleton stuck to a wall.

Once through that he came into a fairly large chamber that reeked like the worst bars at the Rendhold docks. The scent brought back memories of his father that made him grimace, but he shifted his expression when Mez came into view so that he could put on a friendly smile instead.

Mez was leaned over a large metal cauldron which he was stirring intently, the entirety of his focus on the work in front of him. Dantes had no idea where he’d found the cauldron, or most of his other equipment for that matter. It was a hodgepodge of somehow unbroken glass, metal buckets, leaky wooden barrels and clay pots. All of it was filled with some kind of liquid, or soon to be liquid that was fermenting, and if one smelled any of them too closely their nose hairs would burn away. It all reminded Dantes of an Alchemist shop he’d robbed with his gang in their early days. They’d made out with thirty pieces of silver, a bag of unlabeled potions that shattered before they made their escape, and a strange rash from touching ingredients that had been left out. It had been a failure, but the silver kept them pleasantly drunk and high for a few weeks at least.

Dantes pondered all of this while waiting for Mez to break his concentration. It was never a good idea to disturb a Kobold that was intently focused on what they were doing. Usually it was because they could accidentally trigger whatever deadly trap they were working on, but in this case it just seemed rude.

Mez finished another half stir motion, and reached a bare claw into the liquid, putting it into his mouth to taste the concoction he was working on. He nodded twice, seemingly satisfied and then his head and tail twisted as his tongue tasted the air. Mez was a deep red in color, with random purple scales in pockets across his hide. He wore alcohol stained rags, and was missing several teeth on the right side of his face from the fight that had landed him in the pit. From what Dantes had gathered, the Orc he’d been fighting had come out of the brawl without the use of his legs, which seemed a more than fair trade.

“Tes! Welcome! I had thought you would be dead by now.”

“Ah, you heard about the problem with the Elfland Kings?”

“No, I just thought you’d be dead in general. What did you do with the Elfland Kings?”

“Killed their leadership, and a big chunk of their people. Destroyed their magic mirrors that let them smuggle things into the pit.”

“Huh… well… fuck’em. Last time I was in the undermarket one of them called me a short scaled fuckwit with a skull shape that indicates incest earlier in my family tree.”

“Yeah, they can be pretty elaborate with their insults.”

“I mean, sure my parents were cousins so it’s partially true, but the rest of it was uncalled for.”

“Definitely taking things too far,” said Dantes, nodding and resisting a chuckle that had begun bubbling up. “How have you been?”

“Good. Got some business last week from some of those mage folk with the pretty necklaces. May have figured out a way to make the black moss brew taste less like you’re going to die.”

“The mage folk, did they mention they were sent by me?”

Mez flicked his tongue and sighed. “They did… the one with the oddly pretty hair was very insistent you told him I gave good rates.”

“Did you?”

“Yes, I only charged them double.”

Dantes nodded, that was still quite a bit cheaper than what they’d be paying in the undermarket where the markup was much higher. He gave a light cough and held out his hand.

Mez went over to a far corner of his cave and rifled through a few broken pieces of porcelain under which Dantes knew he had hidden a small cache of goods. He came back to Dantes with a small pouch of dust, and a bag of dried food. “Seems light.”

“You could leave a hand lighter if you’re not happy with it,” responded Mez baring his teeth.

Dantes held up his hand. “I trust you, just wondering if the Mages got the better of you in the deal is all.” The lie was reflexive and easy.

Mez shrugged. “Not like I get many customers. I mostly just charge what I need to in order to keep working anyway. So, what are you here for? Just to get your cut, or wanting to get a little something for yourself to make the days pass by quicker? I could use a fresh palate to sample some of the new stuff with me.”

“I actually came here to do a different kind of business with you.” Dantes placed the sack on the ground between them, and opened it enough to show Mez what was inside.

His eyes widened. “Fruit!? Fresh fruit!? Where’d you get this?”

“Don’t worry about the source.”

“This much…” He squinted. “What do you want for it?”

“I want whatever you produce with it. I can get you even more than this every single week.” Dantes had a feeling he could manage a full sack a day, but it was better to underpromise and overdeliver in his experience.

“What would you even do with it? Drink yourself to death? Trade it?”

“I want to make a deal with the Smallfolk Consortium with most of it. The rest I was thinking I’d sling on the side. Cut you in on the profits of course.”

“Fifty-fifty?”

Dantes shook his head. “You can have fifteen or I can throw this sack and the rest of it in the caves for the rats.”

“You start worshiping the God of Greed all of a sudden, you bastard?”

“Fifteen is because I like you. If I didn’t it would be ten.”

Mez looked at the sack of fruit, the gears turning behind his eyes as he considered all of the new equipment he could buy and the amount he could produce.

“Did I ever tell you that you’re the most handsome Midtown Mutt I’ve ever seen.”

Dantes smiled. “Alright, twenty it is.” He held out his hand, and Mez clasped it.