“Is that what we are to you?”
Speranza’s question caught Chase by surprise. “I... what? No. No, you’re people. Even though Tabita did come up as the dragon in a reading once, but that was for someone else. To him she was the unstoppable monster.”
Silence for a bit. Chase felt a little adrift. “I’m sorry if she was your friend, but that’s what she was towards the end. Mostly.”
“No. No, it’s all right. She had problems. We all did— we all do.” Speranza smiled. “I’m sure you did what you had to.”
“We actually tried to help her in the end.” Chase sighed. “I should throw the cards to try and see what I can get about Gnome, and how the dragon impacts our situation, but I don’t have it in me tonight. Too tired. My mind would go off on tangents.”
There was also the fact that she didn’t want to cast the cards with just Speranza there. The woman knew how to read them, sort of, and Chase knew better than to trust her completely. If the fortuna told her to do something horrible or against Chase and her friends, she might be tempted to take the chance. It was an unlikely occurrence, but still.
Thinking of that brought Yubai’s situation back to mind. “When I cast the cards for him a while back, I got a result that shouldn’t have happened. Three cards came up, each from another set; three of hearts, and the eight of hearts, twice. That’s significant, but I don’t know how. Does it mean anything to you? What’s different about him that it would come up with something like that?”
Speranza’s eyes flickered. Just for a second, Chase couldn’t read her face. Then she smiled again, and it was hard to tell if it was a trick of the firelight, or there actually had been some emotion or furtiveness there.
“Trigrams,” Speranza said. “He’s Chinese, so it’s possible your Medium skills are telling you to use the I Ching.”
“The what now?” Chase frowned.
“I’m not as familiar with this part, but there are eight basic symbols with 64 possible combinations, eight by eight, and the three could signify the ‘tri’ part of trigrams, so it seems to follow that they’d be more applicable to his fate...”
Speranza talked, and Chase listened, exhausted but fascinated.
But the halven girl never forgot that moment of hesitation. Nor did she miss how the ten of clerics kept coming back into view, again and again, as she shuffled her cards back together, and every time it was reversed.
And in the late morning, as the innkeeper cleared away the remnants of a hearty breakfast downstairs, Chase gathered the group around the tables in one of the larger rooms upstairs and laid out the cards one by one.
“This is us, as we are now,” Chase intoned, laying the first card on the table and seeing a regal-faced man on a throne. He wore battered armor and rested a blade on his knees. But the card was upside-down, and her heart sank. “The King of Fighters. Power abused. Manipulation. Someone who’s not as tough as they think they are. That’s not a good start. Here’s what will happen if nothing changes.”
The next card went above the king’s head. A monk and a nun knelt in supplication before an altar. Rays of light shown down upon them. “Unified love. Partnership. Mutual attrac... no, this is our gratitude toward Thomasi,” Chase clarified, hurriedly. “He is what unites us. We’re going to save him together. Going to do our best, anyway.”
The third card came out and sat to the left of the overturned king. “This is our best ally, or some other figure of influence or significance to our goal.”
It wasn’t a fortuna card. It was a five of hearts.
“Whoops!” Dijornos guffawed.
“No,” Chase said. “This is... something? This is significant. For now accept that our ally is hidden.” Hearts again. Why? Chase wondered. “And here is the crucial choice to be made, the heart of the matter...”
And there it was, sitting just below. The dragon, in all his menace.
He was upside down, and Speranza’s gasp filled the suddenly-close air of the small room.
“We have to choose whether or not to go up against the dragon,” Chase whispered. “But it’s not in the enemy slot. Interesting, interesting. So that makes me wonder who is...”
The last card drifted to the table as she dropped it and fell exactly into place as if drawn by magnets. The armored, clearly-magically-armed form of a sadistic bully sneered as he plunged his ludicrous sword into the back of the outmatched noob. “The Griefer,” Chase said. “And gods help us, we have two candidates for that spot that we know of. The Camerlengo’s one.”
“And Pwner’s the other,” Cagna said, as Chase closed her eyes.
No. There was no escaping this fate.
“Well,” she said, as her halven pragmatism washed away her despair. “It looks like we’ve got a lot of work ahead. Let’s talk about how we’re going to get you all into the city...”
CHAPTER 6: SUBTLE PLANS
The crystal ball glowed with energy. The tiny flaws in the casting caught and refracted the light, making it seem like stars peering out of a cloudy sky. Slowly the fog in the center pulled back.
But all that was revealed was darkness. Just like the last six times she’d tried.
“Focus Vision,” Chase said, turning the ball in her hands.
It wasn’t how the skill was supposed to be used, but three tries ago she’d caught on that it did in fact have some synergy with her crystal ball. And like the last few times, the fog peeled back even faster, and the darkness got a slightly-less dark quality.
Your Focus Vision skill is now level 7!
Now, if she just squinted, she could make out an outline in the middle. An outline that could possibly be a human, or a human-like figure.
Except that wasn’t all she saw.
PER+1
“There’s a line of light. It’s part of a doorway, has to be,” Chase said, trying to focus even further on it. And yes, yes it was a door! She could make out a second line stretching across a floor, light spilling under it, illuminating a wisp of color... of tile. For a split-second she thought the things on the edge of the tile were naked halvens, but no, they had wings...
...and then the crystal ball went completely dark.
Your Crystal Ball skill is now level 10!
You are now a level 8 Medium!
CHA+5
LUCK+5
“He’s in a dark room, and I still don’t know where,” Chase said. “But at least part of the room has a tile floor, and there are these short little guys with wings on it. They’re, uh, naked.”
“Okay,” Cagna scratched her nose. “I think I’ve seen that theme in some of the art around here before everything got...”
“Before everything got burned,” Chase said, opening the curtains and letting light back into the room.
It was a weak light, filtering through the clouds of ash that still drifted above the burned city. It faltered through the clouds, hesitant and fearful. It trailed down fingers of illumination on charred cobblestones and trickled over fused bricks that had once been walls.
The dragon had swept over the city several times. One of its passes had spewed a line of fire just one street over. It was only by some quirk of city construction, some miracle of the weather, and frankly fate’s intervention that the block where they’d rented a house in had escaped devastation.
Chase had thanked her much-abused luck for that once they got inside the city... which had been easier than she’d thought, too. There had been no guards at the gate, and the few people they’d seen on the soot-choked streets fled from them. Everyone was wary; everyone was furtive.
A dragon had come to Gnome, and nobody knew why.
Shards of pottery bit her toes as Chase made her way downstairs, and the halven girl sighed to herself and put shoes back on her mental checklist.
The rest of the downstairs wasn’t much better. Some humans had done what some humans did during crises and used the emergency as an excuse to go break and rob things. Chase’s house hadn’t been lucky enough to escape t
hat, and they’d arrived to broken windows, shattered doors, and thoroughly searched rooms.
Still, the fact it was there and relatively unburned was miracle enough. And the looters hadn’t found the stash of really important things. Like Chase’s crystal ball, for one.
And then there was the other thing.
“How is it?” Chase said, pausing inside the doorway to Renny’s room. Cagna followed, eyes flicking to the corners, before she took up a guard position outside the door.
Chase had to repeat herself once more to get Renny’s attention.
“Oh!” The golem jumped, then looked back down at the green glowing thing in his paws. “It’s hard to say. I think we’d need a Wizard or an Enchanter to tell us more.”
“Maybe,” Chase said, staring at the dungeon core. Green, with shifting shapes that looked like numbers... all save for where black, deep flaws spread throughout the crystal.
A few weeks ago, the flaw had been barely as big as the tip of Chase’s thumbnail. Now it was the size of her entire thumbnail, and far deeper. It ate up a fourth of the interior of the gem.
She’d used the cards to try to turn up more information about it, but all the cards would say was that it was bad, bad news. They refused to go into more detail than that.
Which was fine. Chase had enough to worry about right now, so whatever was going on with this gem could wait. “I think it’s time to get everyone and have the talk,” she said, nodding toward the room across from Renny’s door. “Please wake her up and let her know what’s going on.”
“Sure!” Renny said. He put the core back into its hidey hole and picked up a broom many times his size. Then he started toward Speranza’s door with a smile that showed entirely too many plush teeth.
Chase made it downstairs before the broom started slamming against the wood, shaking her head at Speranza’s howl as she was rudely awakened. It was petty but she’d give him that. The Siren was his charge, he was the one who had to handle her... mainly because he had the fastest and most reliable counter to her song.
She found the others assembled in the downstairs bedroom. It was one of the least-vandalized rooms in the place, having nothing of worth and no real decorations worth prying up. It was a bit small by human standards. But then, so am I, Chase thought with a wry smile. “Shall we get down to business?”
“Let’s,” Cagna wove her fingers together, and pushed her hands palms out, cracking her joints in a way that made Chase wince. “So, the cellar’s a mess. Lots of broken jars down there, and the food in that room was pretty much ruined. They broke into the pantry too, but didn’t mess up as much of the food there. Between that and what we bought in Setsofbaggage, we’re good for a couple of weeks. We won’t eat great, but we’ll eat. Chase, I’m sorry, you’re probably going to get a workout.”
“It’s okay,” Chase nodded back. “We might be able to acquire some food around the city. A lot of people have fled, so there’s probably plenty left for those who remained.”
“Cheese us, no,” Dijornos snorted. “That’s not how it works.”
“You have a lot of experience with dragons and burned out cities?” Cagna snapped at him.
“No. But I have a lot of siege experience, and what we’re looking at here is a city that thinks it’s going to be under siege soon,” Dijornos shot back. “First you get the refugees fleeing the conflict. They take stuff with them. Then you get the desperate ones with no place to go, and the morons who think everything will just magically be okay, and they loot and riot because why the hell not?” He held up two fingers, flipped out a third. “After that comes the hardasses, the ones that intend to fight or have no place to go but are smarter about things, and they start realizing that food’s gonna stop coming into the city. So they steal and guard what’s left, start organizing stuff and either ration it out to folks they think are useful or start selling it at huge markup prices.”
The room had fallen silent, staring at the big man. He looked around, and shrugged. “What? That’s how it goes like ninety percent of the time, especially when the leadership gets taken out before the hammer comes down.”
“Sell food?” Yubai glanced up.
“Yeah, they’ll be selling food in the black markets.”
The pandaman’s eyes lit up at that reply.
“Food’s not illegal,” Chase pointed out.
“Selling stolen food is,” Cagna replied.
“There weren’t any wagons coming into the city down the Setsofbaggage road,” said Bastien, tugging his beard. “I’d wager the other roads are like that too. Farmers are cautious types. They’ll probably wait and see if the dragon goes away before bringing in the last of their harvest.”
“And that’s a big concern too,” Chase glanced around as Speranza walked in, with Renny following behind her. They made way for Yubai, as he hurried out. “It’s early winter. It’s been a mild year so far, but it won’t last. People will want enough food to get through the winter, and that’ll make them more desperate. Probably raise prices,” Chase said, looking back to Dijornos.
“Oh yeah,” Dijornos said, shrugging. “Hell, they’ll start raiding the outlying farms if it goes on long enough.”
“Can it?” Speranza asked. “Can it really? What happens if the dragon picks up and leaves tomorrow?”
“It won’t go on forever,” Cagna shook her head. “Even if the Duke is dead, he has family elsewhere, and treaties with the neighboring city-states. Someone will move in and claim rulership. Heck, there’s probably armies being mustered now. There’s only one real complication in this whole mess.”
“The dragon,” Renny pointed out. He hopped up on a stool.
“The dragon that we could choose to fight,” Speranza pointed out. “I’d prefer to avoid that, if at all possible.”
“Yeah, I figured you would,” Dijornos shook his head. “But... what if we do?”
“It’s a dragon,” Chase said. “We’ll have the choice to fight it or not, that’ll be the core of the matter. But common sense and a lifetime of stories tell me that needs to be a last resort sort of thing. The only reason to fight is if it’s necessary to find Thomasi. That’s what we need to focus on, here,” she decided. “Our goal is finding Thomasi and getting out of here before the Inquisition gets ahold of him. We have a little under a week to get this done.”
“All right,” Dijornos said, “I’ll drop it about the dragon. But I’m saying that if we do, then I’ve led raids before. I have skills and tricks and experience with this. This? This sort of raiding is what I live for.”
“And all we’d have to do is join your guild,” Speranza said, her voice cutting through the air like a knife slicing silk.
“Well... yeah! Most of the skills I’ve got wouldn’t work on you if you didn’t,” Dijornos scowled. “What’s it to you? Hell, I could do a lot of things for you if you joined Warring Pizzas! You know all the benefits that guilds have.”
“And all the punishments you can levy if they step out of line. Or if you’re having a bad day. Or if you decide—”
Chase didn’t even see him move. She jumped when his hand slammed into the wall, through the wall, sending puffs of plaster out next to Speranza’s head.
Speranza flinched too, as Dijornos leaned in, staring at her from inches away. “I. Don’t. Abuse. My. Guildies!”
Bastien started to stand. Cagna put her hand on his shoulder. “He can’t actually hurt her,” Chase heard the dog-woman mutter to the Wrestler.
“Yes,” Speranza finally said. “You’re a paragon of leadership and restraint. Which is totally why you just broke the wall.”
Dijornos’ jaw worked, and he pulled back his hand, let plaster dribble through his fingers. “I don’t. I don’t hurt my people. You join my guild you’re my people. That’s how it works.”
“We’ll consider it, if and when it gets to that point,” Chase said, quietly. “But please, we need to figure out how we’re going to find Thomasi. That’s the first problem to solve. And we�
��ll have to do it without alerting the Inquisition.”
“I can help you there,” Speranza offered. “I know some of the places around here that players used to frequent. I know some of the roleplayers who had blended in to the local society... I can’t imagine the Inquisition found all of them. With your permission,” her eyes slid to Renny, “I’ll go investigate those. But it will probably have to be alone.”
“I’m not sure about that,” Chase said. “And don’t get me wrong, it’s not a matter of trust:” she lied, “it’s that the Inquisition will be hunting all of you when they figure out where we’ve gone.”
“I can come back, and you can’t,” Speranza pointed out, bluntly. “And there is no telling what’s left, no telling what measures they took to evade the Inquisition!”
“Which is why I want you working with Renny. Go follow what leads you can and work together to ensure you survive the experience,” Chase told her. “You might have me along too, depending on what other options we have. Okay, that’s your idea,” she decided, shifting her gaze to Dijornos. “How do you think you can help us find Thomasi?”
“There’s no point in dwelling on the past. That crowd you used to run with was all RP creampuffs, no way they survived this long on their own—”
“Hey,” Cagna pointed out. “Don’t crap on someone else’s idea, just point out a better one. You got anything better, or are you just blowing smoke?”
Dijornos shot her a murderous glare, that turned into a bit of a leer as his eyes dipped downward to her bodice. “Cool it, bi—”
“She’s got a point,” Chase held up her hands. “What’s your idea? Speranza’s doesn’t matter, we heard it out. Now we want to hear yours.”
“Right. So...” Dijornos rolled his eyes. “IF I can finish, I was going to say that I know Thomasi’s style. He’s one of those robin hood types, doesn’t like working with the law. I know how cities like this work. I can find the underworld, check the black markets, see who knows where he’s hiding.”
“We’ve had bad luck with the underworld before,” Chase said. “We barely escaped that mess in Arretzi intact. But you’re not wrong about Thomasi. Are you sure they’ll be helpful? From my experience they always ask a price, and they don’t do favors for people who walk in as strangers.”
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