by Robert Bevan
“Close the door, please,” said the woman behind the desk.
Stacy nodded to Julian. So that’s how it was. He was subservient to her now. This shit had better just be part of the act. He closed the door.
“I’m here to see Dolazar,” said Stacy.
The half-elven woman smiled and spread her hands wide. “Take in an eyeful. What can I do for you?”
“You’re Dolazar? I was expecting...”
“A man?” said Dolazar. “So was I. Only one of us, however, was supposed to be surprised. What is your business here.”
“I have something for you,” said Stacy. She took a step forward and reached into her bag, glancing at the men in the green cloaks as she did so. They didn’t even flinch.
“Come come,” said Dolazar. “Time is money. Step forward and let’s see what you’ve got.”
As they approached the desk, Julian spotted a charcoal drawing of a face that looked a lot like Tim’s lying among some other papers on the desk. Stacy didn’t appear to notice at all.
When they reached the desk, Julian nudged Stacy with his elbow and looked at her, repeatedly moving his eyes from her face down to the desk. She responded with a hard, tight-lipped glare.
Julian went back to being silent, mysterious, and unpredictable, but not outwardly threatening.
Stacy emptied her prepackaged offering onto the desk. Specifically on the picture of Tim. Julian took that as a subtle way of saying, “Yes, I saw the fucking picture. Chill your goofy ass out.”
Julian chilled his goofy ass out.
Dolazar frowned at the finger wrapped in bandages sitting atop the pile of coins. “Take this away.”
One of her green-cloaked assistants immediately hopped to the task, removing the finger and exiting the room.
“So you want to be a Rat Bastard.”
“That is correct, Ma’am,” said Stacy.
“What is your name?”
“I’m Stacy, and this is my assistant, Julian.”
Julian wondered how wise it was for her to use their real names. It probably made little difference, but it felt like Stacy was giving away more information than she was getting, as he was almost certain that the half-elven woman’s name wasn’t actually Dolazar.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Stacy thrust her hand forward enthusiastically. “The pleasure is all mine.”
Dolazar accepted a brief handshake, seemingly just to get Stacy’s hand out of her face. “You realize, of course, you must provide a sizable donation to the guild. And there is an initiation test to be passed.”
“Haven’t I just done those two things?”
“You have done neither,” said Dolazar. “All I see here is someone else’s donation and someone else’s failed test.”
“You’re saying you want more money and another finger?”
“The tests are tailored to individual candidates. Do you take me for some finger-collecting savage?”
“Do you take me for a sap?” snapped Stacy, less diplomatically than Julian was comfortable with.
Dolazar laughed in disbelief as she stood up to speak to Stacy face-to-face. “I take you for the least qualified candidate ever to walk into my office. May I please have my ring back?” She put out her hand.
Practically trembling with contempt, Stacy reached into her pocket, then placed a ruby-studded ring onto Dolazar’s open palm.
Dolazar shook her head. “This is a business of subtlety, restraint, and measured risk. You tried to steal from your would be boss, during an unscheduled interview, and with the grace of a herd of oxen. And look at you. In the middle of the day, dressed like some burglar whore, stringing along a strange elven mute wearing a Prismatic Wall.”
Stacy grabbed Dolazar by her blazer lapels. “Listen here, you uptight long-eared bitch!”
“Stacy!” cried Julian. “What are you doing?” He tried to pull Stacy back, but she was strong as shit.
Stacy shook the shit out of Dolazar. “Listen here, you uptight long-eared bitch! I’m the rogueiest rogue in Roguesylvania! Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”
“I honestly do not!” Dolazar’s eyes were wide with genuine terror.
By this time, the two remaining assistants were helping Julian try to restrain Stacy. Julian was thankful that they hadn’t opted to just stab them both to death instead.
“Sleep with one eye open, lady!” screamed Stacy as she was dragged back toward the door. “Because I’m subtle as fuck, and I’m coming for your soul!”
Stacy writhed and screamed like a banshee as Julian and the two men in the green cloaks escorted her.
They threw Stacy out the door and gave Julian an unfriendly shove.
“You’d do well to keep that lunatic in a cage,” said one of the cloaked men. “Don’t ever let us catch you around here again.”
Stacy stood up, brushed herself off, then gave them the finger. But they’d already shut the door.
When they were far enough away, Julian stopped walking. “What the hell was that back there?”
“Relax. Plan A wasn’t working out. I had to adapt.”
“You call that adapting?” said Julian. “Because to me, it looked like you just completely lost your shit.”
“That’s what it was supposed to look like. We bungled the initiation thing, leading her to believe I was an incompetent rogue. So I went with that. I used a bit of misdirection, grabbed what I could, and cut our losses.”
“You are an incompetent rogue. You didn’t misdirect shit. You got caught stealing the ring, and you almost got us killed.”
Stacy smiled. “Getting caught with the ring was the misdirection. My real target was this.” She pulled a scrap of paper out of her pocket.
“What’s that?”
“Fuck if I know. Let’s see.” She unfolded the paper, revealing a series of symbols that Julian couldn’t comprehend.
“Is that a language? Can you read that?”
Stacy shook her head. “Nothing I’m familiar with. Looks like some kind of code.”
Julian didn’t know if the scrap of paper was worth anything at all, but he felt at least a little relieved that Stacy’s recent display of violent batshit insanity probably wasn’t symptomatic of an actual mental health problem.
While Stacy stared at the symbols on the paper, Ravenus flew down to perch on the sign of a long-abandoned shop.
“Good news, sir! I’ve located the wolf.”
“Seriously?” asked Julian. “That’s excellent. Where is he?”
“Follow me.”
Ravenus led Julian and Stacy to yet another abandoned building a few blocks away. “Just in there, sir.”
The smell of rot, decay, and something like raw sewage wafted out of the open doorway.
“Ugh,” said Julian. “That’s horrible.”
“Indeed, sir. Finding the wolf was quite accidental. I had hoped to find something to eat in here.”
The building was small, with only two rooms. Julian found Butterbean lying on his stomach in the back room, the drawstring of Frank’s dice bag still in his teeth. The only furniture in the room was a blood-stained wooden bench. Bloodied rags littered the floor. The bugs crawling all over them might have indicated a certain degree of freshness, but Julian was no forensic investigator.
“Hey there, Butterbean!” said Stacy, leaning down and reaching for the bag. “Who’s a good boy?”
Butterbean reared up to a crouch and snarled at her.
Stacy looked at Julian. “Katherine and I aren’t exactly the best of friends. Maybe he’ll take kindlier to you.” She backed up behind Julian.
Julian approached the wolf slowly and cautiously. He had a high Charisma score, and he thought he remembered having a couple of ranks in the Handle Animal skill.
Be cool, Julian. If he growls or snarls, just back off.
He tentatively reached out to pet Butterbean on the head and met no resistance. In fact, the wolf seemed to really welcome the affection. He eve
n rested his head on Julian's knee once Julian felt comfortable enough to sit next to him.
Their trust established, Julian continued stroking the wolf's filthy fur with his right hand while reaching slowly and cautiously for the dice bag with his left, wary of any change in Butterbean’s demeanor.
Julian got as far as wrapping his hand around the bag and giving it a small tug before he got a low growl from Butterbean.
“Come on, Butterbean. We need this bag.”
Butterbean refused to let go.
Julian tugged a little harder. Something was wrong. It didn’t feel like a bag full of dice. It was squishier than that. He squeezed it with both hands, feeling all around for any solid lumps, but coming up empty. Some yellow liquid oozed out of the opening. He looked up at Stacy.
“There aren’t any dice in here.”
“Then what’s in it?”
Julian shrugged. “I have no idea. Ectoplasm or snot or something.”
“Why would Butterbean be carrying around a bag full of snot? Do you think Cooper has anything to do with this?”
“I guess that’s possible,” said Julian. “But it doesn’t explain why Butterbean is defending it so vigilantly, and why he brought it here to this particular place.”
Stacy scratched behind her ear. “The plot thickens.”
Julian let go of the bag and stood up. “So where do we go from here?”
“We focus on what clues we have available. The most obvious one being trying to figure out what this secret message is.” She pulled the scrap of paper out of her pocket again and peered at the symbols written on it.
“That could be anything. What makes you think it has anything to do with Tim or the dice?”
“I know you noticed the picture of Tim on Dolazar’s desk. They’re in on this somehow. Maybe this is nothing, but it’s all we have to –” Her gaze flickered up from the paper for a fraction of a second. She offered it to Julian. “See what you can make out of it. I have to pee.”
Julian took the paper as Stacy walked out the back door.
There was a triangular spiral, a Q, something that looked like a vaguely familiar Japanese symbol, and a whole bunch of other random crap. There was nothing for him to make out. You either know the code or you don’t. This was just another dead end in a string of – Something thudded from outside.
“Stacy?” Julian called, probably too quietly for anyone beyond the other room to hear him. “Stay here, Ravenus.” The sound came from the front of the building, so Julian tiptoed into the other room and peeked through the front doorway. He was somehow not entirely surprised to see Stacy dragging a body toward him.
“Give me a hand with this guy,” she said. “He’s heavier than he looks.”
It was one of the green-cloaked men from Dolazar’s office. He would have a bad headache and a nasty lump when he woke up. Julian took one of his arms and they dragged him into the room where Butterbean and Ravenus stared blankly at them.
“Getting a bit crowded in here, isn’t it sir?” Typical Ravenus. He’d blurt out questions about fisting moms on a crowded street, but tried to maintain a sense of discreet propriety when inquiring about why Julian was dragging a body into the room.
“This guy was following us. He might have some answers. Or not. I don’t know, but here we are.”
Stacy got right to work tying up the man’s ankles and wrists, then tying the ankles to the wrists. When she was satisfied with her knots, she separated the three strands of a four foot section of rope that she’d cut from the rest. She wrapped two of the strands tightly around the four fingers of each of his hands, leaving only the thumbs to wiggle freely. With the remaining strand, and the balled up sleeve of his green cloak, she made a gag.
“Get Ravenus to perch on his head,” Stacy instructed. “You’re still going to be silent, mysterious, and unpredictable. But you can be threatening this time as well.”
“Should I stand with my hands on my hips?” Julian put his hands on his hips and squinted.
“No. You look like you’re annoyed by a late bus.”
“What if I cross my arms?”
“Too chill.”
“I could lean against the wall and casually sharpen a dagger.”
Stacy shook her head. “That’s going overboard. You know what? Just stand there. You’re doing fine.”
Julian asked Ravenus to perch on the man’s head, then stood out of the way, hoping things weren’t about to turn really ugly.
Stacy let water trickle from her waterskin onto the man’s face until he began to stir, then took a step back.
When he regained consciousness, his eyes opened wide with terror at first, then softened with recognition of Stacy, and finally glazed over with resignation at his situation.
“I’ve got some good news and some bad news,” said Stacy. “The good news is that you’re not going to die today. The bad news is that you might wish you were dead.” She glanced at Julian.
Julian nodded his approval. Good stuff.
“If I take this gag out, do you promise not to scream?”
The man nodded. Stacy removed the gag.
He cleared his throat, spat out a bit of lint, then looked up at Stacy. “If it’s all the same to you, can we skip the torture routine?”
Stacy looked at Julian again. He shrugged.
“This is standard protocol for getting captured,” the prisoner explained. “I’ll happily tell you everything you want to know if you promise not to hurt me.”
“What kind of protocol is that? You expect me to believe you’ll just sell out your fellow guild members as easy as that?”
“As our organization takes into account a certain level of mutual distrust for occasions such as this one. I’m not privy to any information which could be particularly damaging if leaked.”
Stacy nodded. “That sounds fair.”
“You can get off his head, Ravenus,” said Julian.
Ravenus hopped down to the floor.
“Thank you,” said the man. “Now how can I help you?”
“You can start by telling me everything you know about the halfling.”
“What halfling?”
“Oh come on,” said Stacy. “I thought we were going to skip the whole torture thing.”
“I’m sorry. That was a very vague question. You’ll have to be more specific.”
“The halfling on the picture on Dolazar’s desk.”
The man bit his lip and thought for a moment. “Oh, are you talking about the wanted poster?”
“Wanted poster?” asked Julian. “What is Tim wanted for?”
Stacy glared at him. He realized he was both breaking character and prematurely giving away information. She kept the glare, but directed it toward her captive.
“A whole list of things. Murder, arson, theft, indecent exposure, blasphemy, rape, –”
Julian and Stacy gasped.
“I made up the rape part. I was curious to see what it would take to get either of you to look surprised.”
“Where did you find the poster?” asked Stacy. “And why is Dolazar interested in him?”
“She’s interested in all matters involving criminal activity. I ripped that one off a lamp post. The kingsguard began posting them all over town this morning.”
Julian leaned over and whispered to Stacy. “Ask him about the message.”
“I was getting to that.” She pulled the coded message out of her pocket, unfolded it, and held it up for the bound man to see. “Can you read this?”
“Yes.”
“Please do so.”
The man cleared his throat. “Overheard at Arby’s. Major transaction going down at Crescent Shadow. Goods unknown.”
Stacy nodded slowly. “He’s going to make a deal with Mordred.”
“I still don’t think he’d screw us all over like that,” said Julian.
Stacy glanced at her prisoner, then dragged Julian by the arm into the other room and spoke in a whisper. “I don’t think so eithe
r. I think he’s trying to be a hero to make up for screwing us over before. He wants to save the day and bring all of us back home.”
“Well that sounds nice,” said Julian. “Why does your voice still sound like you think he’s a piece of shit?”
“Because it’s still all about him. He’s like that friend with a gambling problem who steals your life savings to bet it all on a ‘sure thing’ at the racetrack. He’s telling himself that you’re going to thank him when he pays back double what he took from you, but he knows that if he fucks up, he hasn’t really lost anything.”
“You think he’s going to fuck up?”
Stacy looked into Julian’s eyes. “Julian. Look deep inside yourself and find the answer to that question.”
Julian frowned. “Shit.”
“I don’t know how this whole ‘multiple Mordred’ thing works. But if he’s retaining memories from all of his avatars, then he saw all the shit that went down at the Whore’s Head right up until Tim slit his throat, and can probably guess what happened shortly thereafter. He knows Tim is in a desperate spot right now, so he made him an offer too good to pass up. Tim steals the dice for Mordred, and Mordred promises to set him and all his friends free.”
Julian didn’t want to think that Tim would be that gullible, but what Stacy was saying made a lot of sense. The stolen dice. The major transaction. Arby’s. Tim’s sudden crime spree.
“Shit,” Julian said again.
“We need to get to Crescent Shadow and intercept those dice before Tim makes contact with Mordred.”
“Sounds good. Where is Crescent Shadow?”
“How the hell should I know?”
Julian nodded toward the other room. “Do you think he knows?”
Stacy marched back into the rear room. “We’ve got one more question, and I suggest you give me a straight answer, lest I have my companion’s bird peck your eyes out.”
“That’s really unnecessary,” said the man. He looked down at Ravenus.
Ravenus, startled at being the focus of anyone’s attention in a conversation he didn’t understand, looked at Julian. Julian shook his head.