The Bad Guys Chronicles Box Set

by Eric Ugland

  “Summon Fiend is a valuable spell,” she said, “so if you prefer, I could offer you one of equal value. Or, I could offer you these three lesser spells that might be more beneficial over the long term for you.”

  I read the books over: Silent Image, Detect Secret Doors, and Satisfaction. Just from the names themselves, they seemed like they might be useful. But what about a more powerful spell. That wasn’t on the table at present, so I had no idea what it might be. Granted, at that particular moment, I was focused pretty hard on the immediate problem, getting the orb out of the mansion.

  Bells tolled in the distance, and I realized that I didn’t have all the time in the world, I had to get all dolled up.

  “Sounds fair,” I said, swallowing my doubts. “If I come across more spell books, can I bring them here? Trade them in?”

  “Bring them here,” she said. “Perhaps I will be willing to teach you more spells then. Learn these spells now, and we will move on to our lesson.”

  “I’m happy to learn the spells,” I said, “but today I have to run.”

  “Oh?”

  “Thing tonight.”

  She frowned but nodded. “Learn your spells then. Return soon, magic is not to be left alone, you will lose it if you do not use it.”

  I swallowed the smirk and got to learning my spells.

  Look at that, you’ve learned the spell: Silent Image

  Silent Image allows you to create the visual illusion of an object, creature, force, or anything visual which would fit within a fifteen-foot sphere. It does not allow any other sense to be produced. The image may move within a range of four hundred feet from the caster. The illusion lasts for one minute.

  Look at that, you’ve learned the spell: Detect Secret Doors

  Detect Secret Doors allows you to detect secret doors. It was named with much creativity. Requires an object tied to a string. Casting the spell will cause the object to spin on the end of the string if there are specifically-constructed hidden doors or portals within one hundred feet. Channeling the spell will cause the object on the end of the string to point directly towards the nearest secret door.

  Look at that, you’ve learned the spell: Satisfaction

  Satisfaction allows you to imbue a creature with a feeling of immense relaxation and satisfaction as if everything in life is okay for the moment. The spell lasts five minutes, though if you’re lucky, the feeling might last a lifetime. Or, the feeling dissipates immediately.

  As I left, I turned to look back through the windows and saw that Careena had reset everything, she was sitting in her big high backed chair, black walls close all around, and all the creepy stuff had returned to sitting in the windows.

  Chapter 63

  I went and got a bath first, and I got one in the chintzy neighborhood of the Golden Square. Though pricey, it was actually really nice. A small room with a private bath, piping hot. There were nice smelling soaps to use, pleasant shampoos, all those nice things. And following getting clean, I went around to where the barbers were and got my hair done in the style of the time. And a shave. Which was done with a straight razor and hot towels. And while that was happening on my face, a manicure happened on my hands. It was so relaxing, I almost fell asleep in the chair.

  My next stop was a tailor, where I found out that getting dressed as a noble is expensive. Especially when it has to be done quickly. I skipped out of the first place and rushed down to Gideon’s where I sold off the big bag of rings and jewels I’d gotten as the bonus for saving Matthew’s life.

  “Gold or credit, Evergreen?” Gideon asked.

  “Gold,” I said. “Unless you happen to have an outfit back there fit for a nobleman.”

  “Of what land?”

  “Here?”

  “A moment.”

  The figures rushed out from behind him, and Gideon closed his eyes. All very curious. The hooded figures moved quickly about the space, pulling open all sorts of crates and barrels, quickly returning to lay out a number of outfits on the counter. They were all slightly different but seemed to match what I’d seen posh people wearing on my occasional visits to the nicer parts of town.

  “I mean,” I said, “I don’t know. Is this what the cool kids wear?”

  “Who are these cool kids?” Gideon asked, confused.

  “The rich kids. The aristocratic youth.”

  “Some of them wear outfits similar to these.”

  “Am I going to look, you know, good in them?”

  “We have based our selections on your perceived size, and we feel these outfits will fit your body within acceptable parameters.”

  Gideon certainly had a way with words.

  “Mind if I try these on?” I asked.

  “We are aware that it is traditional in this case, and we will allow it.”

  Trying not to be concerned, I disrobed and tried on the various outfits. There was one that fit well, and it looked okay. But it was a faded yellow sort of color. Tight pants, tight tights, and a puffy shirt. The coat was tight in the torso, then flared below. I felt like an absolute tool, but it certainly seemed to be the fashion of the times.

  “I’ll take this one,” I said.

  Gideon nodded and told me the price, and I had to admit, I was getting a far better deal than at the tailor. Plus, it was already done. The tailor was talking about multi-week waiting times. I added a replacement sheath to the order, then put the stuff into my knapsack, packing it as carefully as I could, and then I made my way back to my apartment.

  Outside of my place, as dusk was falling, I saw two large familiar figures walking towards me with purpose. Huge dudes. Big heads. Grey skin. Large mouths. Tusks poking out from thick lips. Chubs and Mountain. Had to be. They looked remarkably similar to each other in the daylight, though one had some bandages on his leg and hand, while the other one was rather portly. I had to imagine the one with the bandages was Mountain while the pudgy one was Chubs.

  “You an elf?” the bandaged one, Mountain, asked.

  “The ears give it away, don’t they?” I replied, pointing to my pointy ears.

  “Aye,” Chubs said. “You’re an elf.”

  “You caught me.”

  Chubs grabbed me by my shirt and picked me up as if it was nothing to him. Despite the fat, he was enormously strong, and his biceps were ridiculously large.

  “You live there,” Mountain pointed at my building.

  “No,” I lied. “I don’t even live in this neighborhood.”

  “Why you here?” Chubs asked, pulling me so close to his face that our noses were almost touching and I got the full effect of the stench coming out of his mouth.

  “Going to that tavern,” I said, pointing over his shoulder.

  “Why?” Chubs repeated.

  “I heard it has good food.”

  “You know elf who live in there?” Chubs asked, once again pointing to my building as if I’d forgotten.

  “You think all elves know each other?” I snapped. “How ridiculous is that? Do you know all half-ogres?”

  Chubs pointed to Mountain. “Know him. We are it.”

  “Okay, so the population of you guys is smaller than I thought.”

  “You know elf?”

  “No. I’m new to the city, I don’t know anyone. I am looking for work. Are you hiring?”

  “No,” he set me down. “You are too small to work.”

  Chubs pushed me away.

  “Leave me alone,” he said.

  I faked a stumble and then continued on my way, sneaking a glance over my shoulder to see the two half-ogres talking to another elf that had the temerity to walk by my apartment building. I had been thinking of stopping by my apartment, dropping some of my things off, but now, I just went straight to the bar.

  Chapter 64

  Which was packed.

  The success of the Heavy Purse was definitely a mystery to me, and though I was definitely curious about the whole thing, I was also struck by the question: does it matter? And, to be honest, n
o, not really.

  It was also interesting to go into the Heavy Purse and get waved at by three people for three separate reasons. Titus waved from behind the bar, Matthew waved from a table, and the Iron Silents guy, not Insidious, the other one who’d neglected to give me his name, waved at me from the bar.

  I gave a smile and headed to the bar.

  Matthew seemed to get it, probably thinking I was going to get the guard, Peregrine Gilkes. But I hadn’t seen him amongst the crowd yet.

  I elbowed my way until I was standing next to the Iron Silents guy.

  “Mr. Hatchett,” the guy said, “it is so pleasant seeing you today.”

  “Happy to see you too,” I said. “Are you here to see me?”

  “Oddly enough, I am.”

  “Asking about selling the building again?”

  “I am.”

  “I don’t want to sell.”

  “You haven’t listened to my pitch.”

  “What’s your pitch?”

  “Join us, bring your building into our fold. You will be a full-fledged member, gaining all the benefits your rank entitles you. And know that you were among those at the start, before we became the most powerful group in the Empire.”

  “Is that including the Legion?”

  “Though powerful, I am confident we can surpass those meatheads.”

  “I’m just not sure. Maybe give me some time to think it over.”

  “I was afraid you might say something like that, foolish though it is. Once I leave this tavern, the offer of membership comes with me. It is now or never. Shit, or get off the pot.”

  “As tempting as the offer is,” I said, trying my utmost to be polite about things, “I just don’t think the Iron Silents and I are on the same page.”

  He gave me a smile but nodded as if he were actually sad. “A pity.”

  “Before you go,” I said, “just a quick question, are those half-ogre idiots outside your doing?”

  “Half ogres?” he asked, looking up to the ceiling as if actually surprised and pondering the question to some depth. “Can’t say I’ve ever had the slightest interaction with half-ogres.”

  “Thanks anyway,” I said, pushing off the bar, and pivoting away through the crowd until I got to the door leading to the storeroom.

  Titus saw me and spoke something to his wife before darting over and going in the back room with me.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “Two things,” he replied. “That thing in the subbasement, it’s been making a lot of noise lately.”

  “And you want me to check it out?”

  “You were curious about it.”

  I sighed longly in his direction.

  “Okay, maybe I should have taken a look earlier,” Titus said. “I’m not a brave man.”

  “I’ll add it to my to-do list, but it won’t be tonight.”

  “Okay,” he said, in the way where he was making it clear it would be my fault if the building collapsed.

  “Two?”

  “Two what?”

  “You said two things.”

  “Right, two. This one is, uh, well, I don’t know your financial situation very well, but you seem to be, uh, not that concerned with money, and I was talking to the owner of the building next door, and he was saying he’s selling.”

  “You want to buy the building next door? Move the tavern?”

  “No. Not at all. There’s no way I’d have the money for that, just, well, I don’t want you to think I’m ungrateful for the deal you gave us, just, well, where my family is currently living isn’t that safe, and we’ve been sleeping here some nights but maybe you could buy the building next door and I could rent one of the apartments for me and my family.”

  “I mean, I’m not a rich man,” I said, doing my best to ignore the sword I’d paid two thousand gold for at my hip. “But I guess I can try to buy it. Do you know how much he wants for it?”

  “I can ask,” Titus said, a massive smile spreading across his face. “And he is a friend. He will be fair.”

  I forced a smile, wondering if I might make off with something else from Tollendahl’s mansion to cover this brand new cost of mine. Titus clapped me on the shoulders hard enough to make me stutter step to the side. And he was back to work. I waited for a second more, and then went out into the crowd.

  Matthew had somehow kept his table free of other patrons, and when I made it through the packed tavern, I saw there was even an ale for me.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “You get all the things you needed?” he asked.

  “I hope so,” I replied.

  “You look more like someone who’d have this,” he said and slid a very fancy looking piece of paper across the paper to me.

  I picked it up, and this was one fancy piece of paper.

  “What’s this?” I asked

  “Invitation to the party.”

  “Legit one?”

  “Yes.”

  “How—“

  “I have a few tricks up my sleeve yet. I was the one who sent you to those fools over at the Biscuit’s Union, I should be the one that helps you through this nonsense.”

  “I don’t know about that,” I started, but he grabbed his mug and put it up.

  “To nonsense,” he said.

  “To nonsense,” I replied, and we drank.

  Peregrine Gilkes walked in soon after that, saw me, and made a beeline for the table. It was different seeing him in his, well, not guard uniform. Civilian attire? He still had armor on, chain, but it was pretty discrete under his coat. He also wore a very small hat with a tiny brim. Almost like he was ready to drive a tiny car in a parade.

  “Hatchett,” he said, putting his hand out.

  I stood, grabbed his hand, and introduced him to Matthew.

  “I hate to do this,” I said, “but I’m going to have to leave you two to this meeting.”

  “Hot date?” Peregrine asked with a smile.

  “Something like that.”

  Chapter 65

  I used the secret entrance to get to my apartment, and I changed out of my normal attire into my look-at me-I’m-a-noble clothes. I had my argentinium sword on one side of my belt, which looked mostly okay, it wasn’t anywhere near as thin as the rapiers I’d seen on the hips of the young nobles I was emulating. I had my stone stiletto of silence on the other hip, but put all my pouches under the somewhat smelly sheets in my closet. None of the pouches were nice enough to take. The only thing I kept was a small pouch of coins. Just enough gold to cover the minor expenditures. And I didn’t think they were big enough to store an orb. I wanted to take the knapsack along with me, but that really destroyed my look.

  Happy with how I looked, I went back through the secret door, and then walked out of the bar as quickly as I could. I didn’t put my hat on until I was outside. I did a bit more walking, waving at the half-ogre brutes who were still waiting outside my apartment, and then, as soon as I could, I hailed a carriage and got a ride.

  I noticed that dusk was the general equivalent of rush hour in the city of Glaton. Everyone was trying to get to their destination, most likely home before actual darkness came down and the monsters came out. Which, having gone through a few monster-filled nights, I understood. But it also meant there was traffic my driver had to deal with, slower carriages carrying industrial loads, people riding horses, pedestrians crossing roads at random intervals. It was chaotic and annoying. And yet, I couldn’t really fault anyone. Instead, I leaned back in the carriage, closed my eyes, and started cycling my mana. At first, I just pushed it through the channels I’d already created, pumping it around my body. There was the unpleasantness at first, almost like I had to force some channels open again, like I hadn’t used them enough. But once that was done, and we were still at least two neighborhoods away from our destination, I started pushing the mana around faster, and to different areas of the body, really making sure the mana was reaching every spot of me. Sure, there was some pain on occasion, I even h
ad my hp drop a time or two, but that was just an excuse to use my healing spells, which then let this nice thing happen:

  Boom, baby, you just leveled up a spell: Heal Self (LVL 2).

  At level two, Heal Self heals you faster, allowing you to spend the same amount of mana to get nearly double the health.

  I hadn’t even known it was possible for spells to level up, and yet, here it was, now level two and giving me more health with less juice. Worked for me.

  Finally, after I lost track of time, the driver rapped on the top of the carriage. I looked out, and we were there. Or, more to the point, I was in a line of carriages waiting to get onto the grounds. I paid the guy and tipped him a little more than I should have given his wide-eyed surprise at the extra gold, and then I walked the rest of the way.

  Others had the same idea, those of us who weren’t in the top tier, we were walking into the estate. Only the really posh people sat in their carriages all the way around.

  The Tollendahl estate had been transformed in the hours since I’d been there, and it was full-on festive. There was a small band playing out front, a four-piece string group that played some really lovely music. Guards were everywhere, and not just those wearing the Tollendahl tabard. There were also several in what I now recognized as Imperial blue which meant that some member of the Glaton family was in attendance. I wondered if I might stumble upon the emperor. There were guards in green, in yellow, red, all sorts of colors, and all of them looked at me as if I was an interloper. That might also have just been my imposter syndrome acting up. I presented my invitation to a young man in quite the get-up at the door, full powdered wig, and brilliant white stockings.

  He looked it over, then made a small punch mark on it, and handed it back to me.

  “Enjoy,” he said.

  And just like that, I was in. The easiest part of the heist was over.