Downtown Druid

The Shadow Cats eyed the weapons, Jayson with curiosity, Jayk with suspicion, and Zak with obvious desire.

Dantes ate another spoonful of stew from his bowl, it was surprisingly good, Jayson was a talented cook. He gestured to the weapons, “Take whichever you want. They’re elven make, good quality from what I can tell.”

Zak stood and took the longsword from the group of weapons with little hesitation. He gave it a few test swings, and Dantes could tell almost immediately that he actually knew what he was doing. He went into a stance, and worked his way through a brief form with it, one that looked familiar to Dantes.

“You were a guard?” he asked, surprised.

Zak nodded. “Well, I joined up for a job that Jayk had come up with. Didn’t work out…the training was good though.”

Dantes took another bite. He hadn’t considered how they’d gotten thrown into the prison, and asking was taboo, but a job using a plant in the guard? That was ambitious. It made sense given how they’d approached him and handled the jobs he’d given them though.

“What did you mean by backup?” asked Jayk.

“I need to have a conversation with the Consortium. I don’t expect any actual trouble, but I feel it will help to have you at my back with fresh weapons. These in particular.”

“Where did you get them?” asked Jayk.

“Their owners tried to kill me. I killed them first.”

“And why did they try to kill you?”

“The Consortium sent them to.”

Jayson let out a whistle. “And you want us to go with you to talk to them holding their weapons? That’s uh, ballsy.”

“What’s the pay?” asked Jayk.

Dantes raised his eyebrows. “The weapons are the pay. You know the value of steel down here. I think that’s more than fair considering that all I need from you is to stand with me and look intimidating.”

Jayk shot Jayson a look, and Jayson opened his mouth to speak.

“We’ll do it,” said Zak before Jayson could say anything.

Jayson sighed. “Yeah, we’ll do it.” He paused for a moment and gestured to Dantes’ bowl. “How is it?”

“Very fucking good actually.”

…

They made it to the Undermarket without trouble. Their new weapons, numbers, and reputation kept the scavengers off their backs as they made their way through. The kobold and dwarf guard at the Undermarket's entrance eyed them warily, but made no moves to stop them as they entered. Dantes made his way directly to the Consortium’s headquarters at the far end of the market. It was the largest actual structure, built against a far wall that Dantes had been told was linked to a small tunnel which the halflings and gnomes went through to reach a number of chambers accessible only to themselves.

Next to the front door standing in a booth attached to the building was a dark haired gnome wearing spectacles, a simple black tunic, and a bored expression answering questions from a red faced man regarding how he felt he was swindled and shouldn’t owe the gambling debt he had.

“Well, if you take a look at this paper, you’ll see the problem,” said the gnome.

“I mean, I can’t read, but I know my name when I see it.”

“And is this your signature?” asked the gnome pointing at a line on the paper.

The man bent closer to look at it and the gnome grabbed the man's hair, yanked his head closer, and slit his throat with a thin knife before he could react. Then he pushed the man’s head away. He stumbled backward, clutching his throat for a moment before collapsing into a gurgling heap.

The gnome leaned back in his chair and yelled back into the building. “Hey Zek, got a cleanup here. You can keep whatever you find in his pockets.” He wiped the blade of his knife on his sleeve and looked at Dantes. “Ah, Elf-slayer and Orc-betrayer, how can I help you?”

Dantes stepped over the dying man and up to the counter, reaching into his jacket to pull the two right elf-ears from it. He placed them on the counter.

The gnome nodded. “Ah, yes, we heard you might be visiting about that.” He smirked at his joke and clapped twice, a half dozen guards, four kobold and two dwarven, quickly surrounded him at the counter.

Dantes smiled. “That’s not why I’m here. You should know by now I wouldn’t attack from the front anyway.”

“Oh no? You seem to be quite unpredictable to us. If an attack from the front was what we least expected, I could see you making the attempt.”

“Fair enough.” Dantes grabbed the ears and placed them back in his pocket, sending a thought to Jacopo that they were all his, and drawing stares from both the Shadow Cats and the Consortium goons who couldn’t understand why he’d pick them back up after making the gesture. “I’m not here to fight though. I’m here to negotiate. I have something Grimald and the rest of you want. Since his attempt to get it by killing me and stealing didn’t work, why don’t we try things the hard way instead, and make a deal?”

The gnome smiled, this time it was genuine. “Sounds reasonable enough. I’ll have Grimald and the Executive meet you inside.”

Dantes nodded. The Executive was whoever the Consortium’s Council had elected to make significant deals with gang heads. He hadn’t expected that. It either meant they wanted access to his source that badly, which was possible considering even at that moment he had a rat defecating in their latest shipment of ale, or his reputation meant they felt he deserved it. Or both, there was no reason it couldn’t be both.

They were escorted inside to a bare room with a stone slab table in the center, a number of overly small chairs, and a small altar to the god of merchants. The altar held a scale with a gold piece on each side perfectly balanced, and a wrapped scroll below it. Dantes presumed the scroll was their yearly accounting, a typical offering to the god to show that gold has been flowing and goods delivered. He wasn’t surprised to see it, none were so pious as prisoners that had been thrown down into the Pit.

Dantes sat in one of the gnome sized chairs, and balanced his feet on the table in a practiced pose meant to emanate confidence. The Shadow cats stood behind him, or leaned against the nearest wall, all doing their best to scowl intimidatingly and doing a relatively solid job of it.

The door opened, and Grimald with his wisp of white hair stepped through, his face was calm, but his eyes were darting around as if his brain was rattling against the back of them with quick thoughts. As he sat opposite Dantes, a halfling walked through the door. Dantes had expected an old man, but instead a young halfling walked through with mop of brown hair, a relaxed expression, and a large black ledger.

Dantes stood and offered a hand to the Halfling. “Dantes, it’s a pleasure.”

The Executive took his hand. “Rumpert Tothsvagon at your service.” The man’s voice was perfectly measured and coldly friendly in a way that Dantes had only ever experienced when he’d been confronted while shoplifting from the nicer stores in uptown.

Dantes nodded at Grimald as he sat back down. “Grimald, always good to see you.” He gestured back to the Shadow Cats. “Thank you so much for the elven weapons. It was a generous gift.”

Grimald’s eye twitched. “Don’t mention it.”

Executive Rumpert gave Grimald a purely mechanical comforting pat on his shoulder, then looked to Dantes. “So, I have heard that you want to bargain with us since Grimald’s attempt to circumvent you in your trade of alcohol has failed.”

“That’s right.”

“Well, we are prepared to allow you to beat him severely as an opener to negotiations. We are willing to provide both a cane and a post for your convenience.”

Grimald’s face paled as the Executive spoke, and he opened his mouth to object, but stopped himself at the last moment.

Dantes smiled, “I’m interested, but we can table that for now? Maybe circle back to it later.”

“Ah, you’d prefer to do the real business first. I can appreciate that.” Rumpert opened the heavy black tome and began making marks on a blank page in some kind of language or code that Dantes didn’t recognize. “So, what is your offer?”

“I can grant you complete control of my supply of fruit, and willingly hand over all control of my portion of the alcohol trade to the smallfolk consortium.”

There was coughing behind him as Jayson was taken aback by his statement.

The Executive nodded. “Interesting. That’s a high value proposition. We’d be willing to offer a sum of gold, or perhaps some high value goods. For that price we may even be able to acquire you a personal changeling to do with as you please.”

Dantes’ mask of friendly confidence almost shifted to an expression of disgust at that last statement, but he held it together. “A handsome set of offers, but not quite what I’m looking for.”

Rumpert nodded. “Okay then. No reason to waste further time. Tell us what you want.”

“I know that the consortium is able to smuggle people out of the Underprison. I want out.”

Rumpert stopped making notes in his ledger, and gently placed his pen next to the ledger. “Surely you realize if we had a way out, we would simply use it ourselves?”

Dantes shook his head. “No, the business you do here, and the business you do with people above for the people here is too profitable. It avoids taxes, gives you access to a place to safely store illegal goods, and lets you keep your imprisoned people safe. Besides, I’m not claiming that you have a tunnel to the surface that you can just walk out of, I’m saying I know you can occasionally smuggle out individuals.”

Rumpert closed the ledger, and looked up at Dantes. “I’m afraid that’s not something we can do for you. Though I’m willing to hear other offers.”

Dantes shook his head. “Come now, we both know that you only have my booze here now. It makes you a nice chunk of copper every day, and in the long term the gold you save without me involved is significant. My request is not unreasonable.”

Rumpert shook his head. “You don’t understand. We can get certain people out of the Underprison. Usually one or two per year due to the high cost of the bribes involved and the logistical effort required. Your offer is a little low, but not unreasonable for the request you’re making and normally we could work to find a way to make up the difference. The issue is that we can not do this for you.”

“Me specifically?”

“Yes.”

“Why not!?” Dantes felt heat build in his face and fought the impulse to stand and slam his fists on the table as he asked the question.

Rumpert sighed. “As you mentioned earlier, we work with people on the surface as well as here in the prison to make things happen. Typically families pay us to make sure their relatives are well supplied here, and to transport messages. Other times, we are asked to kill a prisoner whose enemies can only reach him through us. In very unique cases we are paid specifically to not do things for certain prisoners in order to make their lives harder. These are my favorite kinds of deals due to the high value, and low effort involved.”

“And someone paid you to not work with me? But I’ve been trading with you since I got here.”

Rumpert nodded. “You were never forbidden from trading or working with us, but two years ago we were paid specifically to never aid you in escaping and to not allow any communications to reach you.”

“Who?” asked Dantes, clenching his fists with enough force that his nails began to dig into his palms and make them bleed.

“Hmm, let me check something.” The Executive re-opened the Ledger and scanned a few pages. “Looks like he didn’t pay to stay anonymous.” He looked up at Dantes. “It was a man named Mondego.”

Dantes could hear ringing in his ears, and his vision went red for a moment, but he let out a long slow breath. “And you can’t be convinced to renege on this deal?”

Rumpert shook his head. “I’m afraid not. It’s Feybound, witnessed by one of the Hidden Folk. If we broke it, we would be cursed.”

Dantes forced himself to open his hands and lay them flat on the table in front of him. “Our deal regarding the sale of booze stays the same.” He stood up and held out his hand, his palm dripping blood onto the table.

Rumpert didn’t hesitate to stand and shake it.

Dantes started to roll up his sleeves, and when he was done he pointed at Grimald. “Let’s circle back around to me beating him.”