Three’s a Crowd, Four’s a Party

Three’s a Crowd, Four’s a Party 35 MINUTE READ

“Alright,” Travis said, unfolding the scroll on the party’s arrival in Riddleport. They were freshly disembarked from the bowels of Captain Kellis’ Bitch Queen and still walking strangely on land. It was a windy and gray day in the disreputable city. “As we talked about on the trip, wererats have been kidnapping children and infecting them. A faction within the city wants them stopped, with the minimum amount of carnage.”

“Nasty things, wererats, but surprisingly foundational to most thieves’ and assassin’s guilds,” Minke observed. They sniffed as a wind came up off the foul bay of Riddleport, and carried the smell of the bodies not fully eaten by sharks up to their nose. “…especially in this distinguished town.”

“Why is being a wererat bad, again?” Jan asked, swinging her mace idly next to her leg.

“You get all horrible and hairy,” said Misra. She pushed her mass of tangled hair back from her shoulders as she looked up and out over the docks. Geoff had his head turned to keep an eye on the bay. “Plus, for all you’re faster and have claws and all, I’ve heard they eat garbage.”

“You eat weeds,” Raelus pointed out. “From by the road. In handfuls.”

Jan frowned as she took all this in. “And it’s bad for a child to have claws and eat garbage?”

Minke said “yes” at the same moment Raelus said “not necessarily.” They glared at each other.

“The only great downside to the bodily modifications of lycanthropy is the lack of control,” Raelus said. He shifted his blackened coat to reveal a row of vials on the inside. “But I’ve solved that. Would you argue that being able to defend oneself and subsist on the leavings of the civilized world are bad traits for an urchin?”

Minke sneered. “I would argue that—”

“No one is arguing,” Travis pronounced, in a tone so cold it stopped Minke at the beginning of their diatribe. His eyes had a distant look that the group had learned meant he was finishing off a plan. His plans, unlike the plans they had all concocted at one point or another during their time at the lead, tended to work. “Minke, go to the homes. Check for signs of entry and for footprints the locals missed. Jan, go with, keep them moving.”

Jan saluted with the mace, which Misra dodged more out of practice than grace. Minke sniffed a little at Jan being situated as their minder. Then their indignation faded, likely at the prospect of having a fresh mystery to poke at.

“Misra, talk to the plants and animals in the area,” Travis continued, tugging his gloves tight on his hands as he stowed the parchment in his coat. “See what there is to know from things that don’t have reason to lie.”

“And where have you assigned me?” Raelus asked, scratching at the back of neck absently. “As ever, I reserve the right to decline—”

“You’re with me,” Travis cut in. “The tallest kid was four foot six. We’re going in the sewers and killing anything above that height.”

“Never mind,” Raelus replied.

“Meet at the Publican House at dusk with whatever you find,” Travis concluded. “Let’s get a move on.”

“Morning everybody,” Kaz greeted, bouncing down the stairs into the guild hall proper to find Aridai, Safiye, and Dagny already clustered around breakfast at a table under a window. The sun was shining in through the stained-glass panels, painting everything with honey golds and the deep reds of the roses. “You beat me down!”

“Me and Saf were already up,” Dagny said, gesturing to the Suli, who was absolutely wrecking a thick piece of toast heaped with over-easy egg. “We’re doing this new bit now, where I hit her with the practice sword, and she tells me to do it harder, and laughs.”

“She’s getting better,” Safiye managed through a mouthful. She yanked at the hem of her shirt to show thin lines of yellow and green slowly coming up on the hard muscles of her stomach. “See? Almost real bruises.”

Aridai leaned across the table from his bowl of stewed oats with diced apple and laid a hand on Safiye’s side. The woman snorted when he took it away and the barely-there bruising was gone.

“Fusspot,” she groused, but she did sit more comfortably after that.

“Hey, as long as it’s working, and we’re not eating up too much of Ari’s energy,” Kaz said, phrasing the end like a question and glancing over at Aridai.

“It’s fine,” he said, smiling and shaking his head. “I’m convinced Safiye is having Dagny beat on her more so I feel useful.”

“That’s exactly it,” Safiye said, before crunching into the corner of her toast. “Mmph. I’m a saint.”

“Cheers for finding a shirt,” Dagny said. She kicked a chair out for Kaz before crossing her legs under herself again. “There’s tea. Think I brewed it right this time, but, just in case, I did use the stuff Essa drinks.”

“Well, I’ll be awake,” Kaz said, sitting down and pouring himself a cup. He looked around the table at his party and took in their condition. Dagny and Safiye still had good color in their faces from training, with Safiye’s short hair toweled dry and Dagny’s tied back into a ponytail that was all flyaways around her face. They looked tired from the exercise, but not exhausted, which was good. Aridai was his usual tranquil self, horned head bowed over a small book open next to his meal, apparently catching up on that collection of student one-act plays out of Sandpoint he’d mentioned before.

“Travis’ group took the job in Riddleport,” Kaz began, “so it looks like we have just a few things around here we can tackle, if we’re up for it.”

“Fine by me,” Dagny muttered. “Ugh. Hate rats.”

Aridai turned a page in his chapbook. “That leaves… the caravan guarding, or the Old Sandpoint scouting for the Mercantile League, which Durhmol brought in?”

“Let’s do the thing for Durhmol,” Safiye suggested. “Never hurts to get in good with the boss.”

“Don’t let Essa hear you call Durhmol ‘the boss,’” Dagny teased. “And I think I’d prefer the leg stretch. The caravan’s only going out to Windsong Abbey, right?”

“I don’t have an opinion either way,” Kaz said. “Ari?”

Aridai looked up with a slight grimace on his face. “Ah… well, if it’s down to me, and knowing I think both are equally important, but, of course, there’s only so much time…”

“Speak your mind!” Safiye groaned.

“What do you want, Ari?” Dagny asked.

“My knee has been bothering me,” Aridai confessed. “If it’s no trouble, I’d prefer to keep local.”

“Then it’s decided,” Kaz said, grabbing a plate and his own slice of toast. “Once we’re done here, let’s let Durhmol know, get packed up, and head out for town.”

“So…”

Raelus and Travis stared down at the sewer grate. Flames licked up from between the bars, with infrequent belches of foul-smelling smoke. Raelus was still slightly on fire. Travis looked unruffled except for a streak of amber-colored slime across his left cheekbone.

“So, oozes,” Raelus said, smacking at the flames chasing his coat. “Flammable, fortunately, but under four foot six for the most part.”

“What a shitshow,” Travis muttered.

“That was a nasty piece of work with the razor wire grid on the black pudding.” Raelus dug a silvered flask out of an interior pocket and used it to inspect what remained of his beard and eyebrows. “Assassin?”

“Just a mercenary,” Travis said. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the river. “Publican House is this way. We better move before someone in this town thinks to ask what’s going on, for once.”

“Royal spymaster?” Raelus ventured.

“Just a mercenary. Keep moving.”

The Publican House was near to overflowing with workers from the stinking River District when Travis broke the crowd like a knee-height battering ram and made for a table Minke, Misra, and the preternaturally still Jan were seated at.

“…horrified, Jan, you showed the child a dead bird!” Minke was saying, gesturing at the woman. “Gods’ sakes, her brother is missing, it’s not the time. Also, why do you even have one up your sleeve?”

“It’s not dead,” Jan said. She held up her right sleeve and shook it until a little brown body fell out onto the surface of the table. Travis, Raelus, Minke, and Misra all stared it as it lay still. Then, with a peep, its feet popped out of the feathers on its belly and it righted itself, soon busy pecking breadcrumbs off the table surface. “See? It sleeps.”

“Sleeps like the dead,” Misra observed. “Where did you even get that?”

“Report,” Travis cut in, levering himself up onto a human-sized chair. Minke glanced at him, tugged a folded handkerchief out of their satchel, and flung it over. Travis mopped the streak of slime from his face and nodded for Misra to start.

“From the plants it’s all complaining: about the industry along the river, getting trampled and pissed on by the locals, being et by the things what slope around Riddleport when no one’s looking,” Misra said. “But there was one thing—patch of poison ivy growing near the Free-Coin District said one group coming and going a lot recently had pollen of the Leeward District coming off them.”

“That makes sense,” Minke said. “The children are being abducted from the Leeward District, and those returned so far have been dropped in the same area. Unfortunately, my work was less productive. The sheer population in the tenements has resulted in most usable clues being obliterated. I do so miss a controlled scene.”

“I learned a new phrase from two people in a stairwell,” Jan added.

Travis raised his eyebrows before turning to flag down a barmaid. “Yeah?”

Jan said it. Misra burst out laughing, Minke put their face in their hands, and Raelus sighed deeply. Travis ordered one strong ale for himself and left the others to manage their own orders.

“In a rare turn of events,” he added once the ale arrived, “the wererats aren’t nesting in the sewers. Because Riddleport’s sewers are Varisia’s largest breeding ground for oozes and puddings.”

“Oh, is that why Raelus is still smoking?” Minke drawled. “I thought it was just because he doesn’t know how to interact with any complex situation without reducing it to ashes, as he did everything in his life up to joining L’ordine Della Rosa. But if there was a reason, this time, what growth.”

Raelus sat back in his chair with an expression so stormy Misra slid out of hers to sit under the table with Geoff. “How dare you speak of things which you—”

“Raelus, peace,” Travis interjected. “Minke, maybe remember why you’re here, too.”

Minke flushed as red as the rose-shaped bead dangling from their left earlobe. “That was a minor disagreement over—”

“We left Magnimar because Minke doesn’t know how to talk to people without ripping their guts out, and they talked with most of Magnimar’s law,” Jan said. She gathered her bird up from the table in one hand and put it in her pocket. “And because I broke a man’s knees when I shouldn’t have. But mostly it was Minke.”

Minke and Raelus continued to glare at each other across the table, but now it seemed both were aware of what little benefit arguing about either of their pasts would be, and ready to observe a venomous silence.

“Focus back in,” Travis ordered. “So, the Free-Coin District.”

“Old Sandpoint is anything built before 4680 AR?” Aridai asked, leaning over a map spread out on a large table in the archives of the Sandpoint Mercantile League. The party’s host and quest-giver, Lady Dragomir of the League’s property management division, nodded and traced her finger over buildings picked out in red ink on the expansive map of the town.

“Yes. You see, Sandpoint has become a hub of activity for those between Magnimar and virtually anywhere else in Varisia,” she explained. “This activity isn’t always well-intentioned or profitable, and, unfortunately, a good deal of city infrastructure has been compromised over the years by traveling monsters, thieves’ guilds, cataclysmic disasters, magical ne’er-do-wells, and…”

She gave Aridai, poised to look as non-threatening as possible standing 6′ 3″ before the horns, and the well-armed party behind him, an awkward look. “…adventurers.”

“Yeah, that sounds right,” Safiye said.

“Since 4680 AR, the Mercantile League, in conjunction with the Sandpoint mayor’s office, has conducted routine inspections on League properties, and properties affiliated with the League or the government, to assure safety,” Dragomir forged on. “However, any vacant properties, non-League properties, and large sections of rubble that used to be buildings which pre-date 4680 AR have gone unassessed. We collectively refer to these properties as ‘Old Sandpoint’ in discussions about the city’s growth.”

“From what Durhmol told us, the League has come into ownership of a big chunk of Old Sandpoint,” Kaz said. Dragomir pursed her lips.

“Oh yes, I had almost forgotten Lady Vix’s new… affiliation… with your group.” Dragomir made a little ‘hmph’ sound and then trailed her gold-plated nail over a different area of the buildings inked in red. “Well, it was agreed we would make use of you on a trial basis, considering the possible dangers in Old Sandpoint. The League’s acquisition is this group of buildings here.

“They’ve been vacant for almost a decade, so there’s no telling what might have nested. By and large we’ve found the area quiet,” she continued. “This is more of a cursory check than anything, but the area is prime for a luxury shopping and entertainment experience, so not doing our due diligence would hardly be wise.”

“That sounds… really nice?” Dagny offered. Dragomir gave her one look and turned back to Kaz.

“I trust your group can be relied upon to inspect the area, handle any dangers, and report back by the end of the business day?”

“Absolutely,” Kaz said, reaching out to shake her hand with a smile. He cocked his head as he recalled something Durhmol had mentioned. “Sandpoint isn’t so far away. I know, speaking for the whole guild, that we hope this can be the start of even more good things between us and the League.”

Dragomir raised her eyebrows but didn’t seem outright offended by the idea. Kaz’s group was escorted out of the League offices, and left to find their own way over to the area of buildings to check out. Kaz stopped to appraise them.

“With cities, we don’t want to separate,” Safiye mentioned. She pointed at various parts of the area, from narrow staircases to upper floors, to blind alleys, and to basement doors. “Too many ways to get cornered and picked off if there is something here.”

“That makes sense,” Dagny said. She shifted and came to rest a hand on the pommel of her sheathed cutlass. “Take a while to get through all this, though, eh?”

“Slow and steady is the way to do it, Saf’s right,” Kaz said. He turned to the group and put a hand each on Dagny and Aridai’s shoulders, who in turn put their hands on the shoulders of the people next to them until they’d formed a little huddle. “Marching order. I’ll go in first with Saf right behind me in case things pop off right away. Dag, you stay behind her and look for a good opportunity to bounce in with your cutlass, alright? Ari, keep an eye on our backs. We’ll make sure to let you know if we need a heal or a hand.”

Ari nodded, then squeezed Kaz and Safiye’s shoulders, sending a wave of warm energy through the group. “A little protection from evil goes a long way too, I think.”

“Alright,” Kaz said. “Let’s hit it.”

A posh-looking lady with her long brown hair draw into a braided updo leaned on the bar of the Dragon’s Hoard gambling hall, making conversation with a drunk man. She drew more than a few looks because she didn’t have the mark of the Silken Veil on her exposed shoulder blade. She was a free agent in a rough city. She only seemed to have eyes for the man she spoke with, however, which was confusing, as he didn’t seem like anybody at all.

But that was his game, and his companion knew it.

“Cromarcky got sick two months ago,” the man slurred. “Caused a big stir. Tammerhawk is the top pick to replace him, but the other crimelords have done an odd bit, and formed a… a sort of…”

“A bloc?” Minke suggested, resting their face in their palm with great care, so as not to smudge their makeup.

“Yeah,” the information broker agreed, waving his drink in a way that momentarily made Minke fear for the safety of their costume. “A sort of… coalition. It’s wretched civilized for this city, but it’s not just a gesture, they’ve actually got the muscle to back it up.”

“Who’s against who?” Minke asked, bringing their drink to their lips in a gesture designed to focus the eye. The broker followed it without thinking, swallowed, and took a sip of his own drink.

“Pamodae is siding with Tammerhawk, probably because his cyphermages keep the Veil flush with lonely wizard gold,” he said. “Boss Croat’s with them too, and Zincher’s waiting to see which way the wind blows. But Knocmar, Slyeg, and Ziphras, all the real scummy types, have banded together to put one of them at the top. Who that ends up being will probably tear the group apart once it’s time to pick, but until then…”

“Real scummy, huh?” Minke laughed a musical little laugh. “I suppose I should steer clear.”

The broker snorted. “Oh yeah. Knocmar runs the beggars and stays about as clean, Syleg works with pirates as part of the smuggling, and Ziphras, well… let’s just say he’s a rat. A real nasty rat.”

“Interesting,” Minke said. They set down their drink, untouched, and glanced towards the door. The information broker clamped a hand down on their knee.

“So,” he said, “about our arrangement?”

“Go home, Boris,” Minke chided. The man jerked back at hearing a name he hadn’t given and began to splutter, but Minke cut him off. “You’re not done with your wife, you’re just bored and working with assholes. If the way your shirt cuffs are still getting pressed in this shithole city says anything, she cares, and you really can’t do better.”

Minke left Boris contemplating his drink and disappeared into the lavatories. They emerged by the side door of the Dragon’s Hoard a bit later with a sack over their shoulder, in plain tunic and trousers, face once more androgynous without the effect of lipstick and rouge.

“It’s politics,” they called to the group waiting at the end of the alley. “Scuffle between the crimelords, at least one of whom is a wererat. Name of Ziphras.”

“Politics always end up hurting those least involved,” Misra muttered as Minke rejoined her. She gave Geoff a pat with a deep sigh. “Terrible business.”

Raelus raised a singed eyebrow at her. “What a charmingly populist view for someone who lives in a twig shack alone with an alligator.”

“Why do you think I do that?” Misra demanded.

“Honestly?” Raelus wrinkled his nose. “Your smell.”

Misra hit him across the shins with her little staff. “Wretched man.”

“So, we go find this crimelord and put the fear in him,” Travis concluded. “Simple enough way to get paid.”

“Wait,” Jan cut in, flawless features creased with a confused frown. “If he’s a wererat crimelord, why’s he turning children into wererats and then giving them back? Why not… other criminals? Or at least useful people?”

The party as a whole paused and looked at her.

“That’s…” Travis’s eyebrows drew in. “…a good point.”

“‘Foul wererat wantonly infects children’ seems more like a smear job than an endeavor with any real point,” Raelus allowed. “Even in this town, that can’t make you any friends. And if the object were to train up little wererat cutpurses, yes, the children would have been kept.”

“Someone’s trying to make allying with Ziphras poison to break up the bloc and cast aspersions on his former conspirators,” Minke agreed. “It has to be the other side. That’s Tammerhawk of the cyphermages, Pamodae the Madame, and Croat of the assassins. I’ve got a beard and a jerkin in here too. Shall I go chat up the ladies of the Veil?”

“Can’t hurt,” Travis said. “Take Raelus as backup— no arguing. Misra, sniff around the cyphermages. Jan, you’re with me on the assassins. There has to be somebody working for one of them that’s a wererat not affiliated with Ziphras. Find them.”

They were three houses from done with their sweep when Kaz opened a door down into one of Old Sandpoint’s basements and heard the chanting. He immediately raised a hand and closed it into a fist to halt the party while he listened. They crept down the short stair until they could see firelight on the wall, at which point Kaz and Safiye peeked around the corner to assess the situation. She was the first to report back.

Safiye groaned. “Ugh, it’s fucking cultists!”

“Point of order,” Aridai whispered, “actually fucking cultists, or are you just upset? Because I read a play about the former once that was very unpleasant, and I’d like to hold onto my breakfast.”

“Just cultists, but gods,” Safiye hissed. “They’ve got this nasty little effigy of what looks like a, like a… bean with arms, and it’s all… wet, and shiny.”

“Three people armed,” Kaz reported as he ducked back to the group. “High priest-type with a ritual dagger, two others with shortswords. Three other worshippers, unarmed, but could be magic users. This looks like a bad scene.”

“What, six on four?” Dagny asked. She scoffed. “Saf counts as three, with both fists. It evens out.”

Safiye grinned at Dagny but Kaz shook his head. “I’m not taking you all in without a better plan against these numbers, and no idea about the magic factor. Let’s head back up and—”

“AS THE PROPHECY PROCLAIMED, SEVEN YEARS AGO,” one of the cultist’s voice suddenly boomed, cutting through the chanting, “THE BLOOD INFANT WILL GROW, AND GROW, UNTIL ITS CRIES SHAKE THE PATHETIC SHELTERS OF THE AGED!”

“The what now?” Dagny asked, but Aridai shushed her. His eyes were on the light and shadows against the left-hand wall.

“Is the bean… growing?” he asked.

“UNTOLD YEARS HAVE TAUGHT THE RACES OF THE WORLD NOTHING OF ITS MEANING!” the cultist screamed. “THE BLOOD INFANT WILL RETURN US ALL TO THE WOMB OF THE EARTH TO BEGIN AGAIN, AND OUR OFFAL WILL BE ITS MOTHER’S MILK!”

Kaz stared wide-eyed at the shadow Aridai had pointed out. “Yo, I… think the bean is growing.”

“Fuck this,” Safiye hissed. She clenched her fists and they burst into flame as her eyes did. “Back me! I’m not fighting a big freaky baby. Time to stop this mess!”

Kaz cursed and yanked his shirt over his head, the nice one Loren had gotten him for Winter Week, and shoved it to hang out of his back pocket. “Ari, hit the buffs!”

Aridai slapped hands on Safiye, Kaz, and Dagny in quick succession, and then the party burst out of the stairwell. Safiye clocked the nearest cultist before she could so much as scream, her hair catching fire as she flew back. Amidst all of them, the shape of strange bean effigy with misshapen arms and legs continued to grow in size, though its slimy sheen didn’t lessen.

“NO!” the head cultist screamed, jabbing a finger at the party. “WE HAVE LABORED TOO LONG TO BE THWARTED NOW! ATTACK!”

Kaz went back-to-back with Safiye and they rained alternately flaming and ki-charged punches down on any cultists that stepped up. Dagny kept them moving that way with rapid parries and trips, her cutlass darting through the air with a swashbuckler’s panache, at one point carrying off a daring backflip out of the way of a spell effect.

The smartest thing to do would’ve been to keep out of harm’s way, but the effigy continued to grow. Aridai locked eyes with the high priest and raised the iron star of Desna hanging around his neck.

“She’s going that way!” Minke called, as the wererat courtesan sprang for an alley outside the Silken Veil. The wall next to her exploded in ice, but her lycanthropic reflexes carried her out of the way of the worst of Raelus’ bomb’s effect, and she pressed for her escape… only to be met with an explosion of masonry as Jan’s mace swung into the wall of the alley she turned into. The courtesan screamed and ducked under Jan’s arm as she heaved to free the mace.

“Give me a distance?” Travis asked Misra. He was rapidly unspooling braided cord from a pouch on the inside of his coat, a ring of hooked pitons clinking around his thumb. The gnome squinted down the alley as the wererat sprinted towards them.

“About… a hundred feet?” she guessed.

“Can you hold her at sixty so I can work at twenty?” he asked. “I’ll need forty seconds.”

Misra swung herself onto Geoff’s back and let out a horrible, rattling whoop.

It’s a little-known fact that in short bursts, alligators can outrun humanoids. Geoff managed two for his druid as they closed with the wererat. She screamed again as the alligator’s massive jaws snapped at her, and his tail swung at her feet, all the while Misra beat her with her staff and hurled spells that made the pavers explode with green. Nearby, another ice bomb impacted and sprayed crystalline shards over the tangle.

Ten seconds, then twenty. After an undignified scrabble Travis anchored cord to three points on the right-hand wall of the alley, dropped, and scanned it with his eyes. Quickly made another loop, drove it in with a piton. Thirty seconds. Forty. Raelus and Minke were catching up, and there was a crumbling sound as Jan got her mace free at last. Fifty seconds. An embarrassment of time. Then the courtesan sprang directly over Misra’s head and ran break-neck at Travis. He took ten big steps back.

Then he yanked on his end of the cord.

A twenty-foot stretch of wall collapsed on the wererat courtesan, trapping her under a heap of brick and failed masonry. One hand stuck out, partially clawed as the stress of the chase had started to draw out the animal in her against the influence of the moon. Travis prodded it with the tip of his shortsword, finally drawn, and nodded in satisfaction when it tried to swipe at him.

“Anyone bit?” he shouted.

“No,” came a chorus of voices, two negatives for Misra and Geoff— and that was very good, because a wererat alligator was a horror it hurt the mind to contemplate.

“Is she alive for us to get paid?” Raelus asked as he wandered up to the fallen wall. Travis nodded.

“She sang to them,” Minke said. They had their hands braced on their knees as they caught their breath, but gestured with one of them to the trapped courtesan before raising it to prod the beard dangling from half their face back into the grip of the gum they’d applied. “She, whew… I didn’t understand what one of the witnesses meant when she mentioned a lullaby. She sang to them, and when they came to the window to see who was there, she snatched them. Brought them back to the Free-Coin District and had a man dressed as Ziphras scare them, at the Madame’s behest. Then gave them a bite rather than a kiss on the cheek.”

“The others?” Misra asked.

Minke waved a hand. “Too late. They were dropped back in Leeward while we were at the Publican House. But she didn’t have time to snatch more.”

Jan stepped over to the pile and prodded it with her mace. Something heavy shifted, and the courtesan groaned, but Jan kept prodding. Travis really should’ve stopped her. But he didn’t.

“It’s a result,” he muttered, though the words didn’t taste good in his mouth. “Raelus, can you rig up some kind of muzzle?”

“Child’s play,” the man said, dropping his pack and rummaging around inside. Then, almost as an afterthought, he added, “Disaffected stonemason?”

“Just a mercenary,” Travis grumbled, and sheathed his unused shortsword.

The deflation of the Blood Infant was one of the worst things any of Kaz’s party had ever seen, accentuated by the tortured wails of the high priest as Aridai’s powerful casting of dispel magic took effect. It shrank slowly, with a pathetic hhhhweeehhh sound, its coating of blood and viscera dripping off in chunks that made wet splats as they hit the ground. Finally, just the original, bean-shaped effigy was left on the floor of the old basement.

Safiye dropped the cultist she’d been pummeling as the spirit seemed to leave the room. “So… we good here?”

“That depends,” Kaz said, turning to the slumped high priest, who had switched from wailing to sobbing over his ceremonial knife. “We good here?”

“Hey, don’t look at him,” one of the formerly-armed cultists, who was now sporting a black eye, insisted. They flinched back when Safiye turned on them with a smoldering fist, but explained, “Loken’s wife had a miscarriage a while back, then got sick herself. He’s coping, you know?”

“By trying to make a terrible great bean to eat everyone?” Dagny asked. She stuck her cutlass back in its sheath and plopped down on an overturned pew.

“Well, it didn’t start out like this,” said a robed man. “It started out with ales at the brewery that used to be here, but that went out of business.”

“Let me make sure I’m understanding this,” Aridai said, sweeping stray licks of white hair back out of his face. “Loken here experienced a trauma, you gathered to support him, and over the years it turned into a doomsday cult?”

“It sounds bad when you put it like that,” said the cultist Safiye had first punched. She was still patting out the last embers in her hair. “It got him out of the house, right? Reminded him we were all still his friends, and cared.”

“Except for Gureth,” one cultist said, pointing at an unconscious one near Kaz’s feet. “He’s just crazy.”

“He’s the one that killed the thing next door, and made the effigy out of it,” another of the cultists said. “That’s when everything really took a turn.”

“What thing next door?” Kaz asked.

Two hours later found the party and Lady Dragomir, armed with a writing board and a horrified expression, standing in the basement den of the trogolodyte Gureth had killed, gutted, and left to rot. The smell was very bad, but to Dragomir’s credit her heel-turn to vomit was very demure.

“Explain again,” she ordered, as she wiped her mouth with a silk handkerchief and raised a flask of spring water to swish it out.

“So this one guy’s wife dies, right, after a miscarriage,” Dagny began, talking with big gestures of her hands. “And he’s all sad, and his mates get together to try to support him, and it goes on once a week for a long while and starts getting a bit weird. But then this one guy shows up, for real crazy, and says, ‘Well, if it’s all so shite, let’s end the world.’ And not everyone’s thrilled but the one upset guy hasn’t ever gotten real help, and—”

“No, thank you, I understood that part,” Dragomir snapped. “What happened here?”

“The crazy one fought and killed the trogolodyte,” Safiye said, nudging the partially-decomposed corpse with the toe of her boot. “Made a gift for the ‘cult’ out of an internal bit. Probably why the area’s been so quiet, if he was strong enough to pull this off alone.”

“Gureth, er, that one, has been turned over to the authorities,” Aridai added. “As for the others, we all had a very productive conversation about appropriate outlets for grief, and we’ve made contact with some local clerics for continuing counseling for Loken.”

Lady Dragomir made a quick note on her writing board. “So, in conclusion…?”

“The League’s new building site is completely clear, with what situations we did find handled,” Kaz summarized, shirt back on and the picture of composure, despite the rank smell in the room. “Except, yeah, the cleanup in here, but I know you have people for that. Nothing we found will be a problem in the future. You’re good to go.”

“Hmm.” Dragomir looked over the group, now even Dagny, much more thoroughly, her eyes in particular lingering on the rose-stamped patches, tokens, and charms worn by all of them to denote their unity and guild affiliation. “Indeed. Let us conclude our business somewhere less fetid, shall we?”

“You make it hard to get together for a breakdown on the job,” Essa groused, leaning against the wall of the stable as Travis, Misra, Minke, Jan, and Raelus put the horses in their stalls and rolled the traveling cart away to the side, “so let’s do this now. How’d it go?”

“No one bit,” Travis said. Essa let out a sigh of relief.

“See, I like you in leadership, because you get my priorities,” Essa replied. “Alligators, tiefling, drow, whatever, but I draw the line at the bitey ones. That’s vampires and wererats.”

Raelus stepped to her side and held out a vial. “And how do you like me?”

“What is this?” Essa said, uncorking it and taking a tentative sniff. She coughed and corked it again quickly. “‘Renrae’s tits! Did you just dip some water out of the bay?”

“A preventative measure, based on a sample I took from the culprit,” he explained. “Or did you forget the wererat was specifically targeting children?”

“That’s almost shockingly considerate,” Minke called, midway through brushing down one of the horses. Raelus didn’t dignify the quip with a response. Essa clicked her tongue against her teeth and stuck the vial down the front of her dress.

“You talk a lot of shit, Minke, but what have you done for me lately?” Essa chided. She leaned up and planted a big red lipstick mark square on the side of Raelus’ face mostly, it seemed, to embarrass him. “Thanks. I’ll try to figure out what to hide this in so that Fayr doesn’t immediately run away.”

“Any of your stews might work,” the alchemist grumbled. Essa blew him off and gestured to Travis.

“Alright, no bites. Good job. What about the rest? What all happened?”

“We got to Riddleport, investigated the obvious leads,” Travis said as he sorted and hung up the tack. “Got fresh leads, identified a culprit, executed a capture, and got paid.”

Jan’s head poked out of the second horse’s stall, her bird nestled in the swept-back waves of her platinum blonde hair. “Raelus blew up a sewer, Misra let Geoff bite a cyphermage, Minke got slapped by a prostitute so hard their beard fell off, and Travis had a two-hour argument with the owner of a smoke shop about the destruction of a load-bearing wall.”

“Ah, that’s our Jan,” Misra sighed, leaning back on Geoff for support. “Keeping us humble.”

“Uh-huh. What did you mess up, Jan?” Essa asked.

“I missed,” Jan said, with grave seriousness, and disappeared back behind the stall wall again.

“Anyone coming for us about any of that?” Essa asked Travis. The dwarf rolled his eyes and scratched at the stubble coming in on his chin.

“No,” he said. “And, for the record, that wall was not bearing a load. If it had been, I wouldn’t have had to argue with him.”

“On that grim note,” Essa concluded, “there’s food on. Eat something before you all return to your separate corners?”

“If we must,” Minke said, with a put-upon sigh, but the investigator was the quickest of the group to follow their nose back to the door of the guild hall.

Kaz, Aridai, Dagny, and Safiye were, in fact, settling down to part of that dinner when Durhmol raced into the guild hall looking for them.

“Look at this!” she enthused, spreading a letter out onto the table between their plates of rice and quartered flat breads. The letter was long, and the handwriting small, and none of them had time to really read it before she snatched it up again and pressed it to her chest with a satisfied sigh. “A letter from Lady Dragomir expressing no disappointment. I didn’t even know such a thing existed!”

“So, all good?” Safiye asked, carving off a chunk of roast lamb and dropping it on Dagny’s plate.

“Beyond ‘good,'” Durhmol said. “Superlative. I really cannot thank you enough for taking on the job in such a timely manner, and so competently ameliorating the situation as you found it. Truly, I’m— I’m beyond words.”

“You did just say a lot of them, though,” Dagny pointed out. Then her attention was diverted by her appetite. “Another slice, pretty please, Saf?”

“Have you earned it, though?” Safiye teased. Dagny swiped at her with a butter knife until another slice was surrendered.

“Really, Durhmol, it’s not a problem,” Kaz said as he passed along the fragrant sauce he’d spooned over his plate and accepted the salad bowl from Aridai. “Local jobs like that are perfect for us anyway. Just hope that guy gets the help he needs. Weird how enough people rallying around one person with the wrong idea can become a cult, huh?”

“Actually, it’s incredibly common,” Aridai pointed out. “The first few guilds I tried after I decided to settle down turned out to be cults.”

“Fuck, Ari, how long did you end up stuck with them?” Safiye asked, waving the carving knife in her horror. “You don’t know how to say no to people!”

It was very hard to tell when Aridai was blushing because of the color of his skin, but his intense focus on dressing his salad made it clear the answer was embarrassing.

“Thank you for giving L’ordine Della Rosa a chance, then,” Durhmol said, “for all that Essa can be charismatic when she thinks of it, and a bit like a cult leader, I think the organization is shaping up quite nicely, even legitimately.”

“Even legitimately?” Essa asked in mock disbelief as she appeared around Durhmol’s right side and startled the half-orc so badly she fumbled the letter. Essa grabbed it out of the air and flipped it open to read. “Wait. You got a letter of commendation for this job?”

Essa leaned back and called over her shoulder to the rest of the guild members coming in. “You get a letter of commendation for your thing?”

“I got a lifetime ban from the Silken Veil?” Minke offered.

“That’s fun,” Safiye said. “Come get a plate and tell me about how you were that bad at sex.”

Aridai choked on a spinach leaf, and accepted Jan’s violently firm back pats with a watery smile. Kaz got up and started getting more plates in the air as most of the rest of the guild filtered in.

“What do you think Victor and that bunch are into?” Dagny asked Misra, as she made sure the druid got a bowl of greens and Geoff a hearty lamb bone.

“Bet there’s a ghost,” Misra said. Travis snorted as he claimed a table, and one of the chairs with a side step and a raised seat Durhmol had ordered to better accommodate the smaller races.

“That’s a sucker bet,” he muttered. “They’ve got a drow and a paladin of Pharasma. They’re either making ghosts or actively looking for them.”

“It was something about a green grocer’s,” Essa mentioned offhand. She artfully dodged the salad bowl and ended up with an extra scoop of rice instead. “Be surprised if they finagle a ghost out of that.”

“Never mind the escapades of absent parties,” Minke said, archly, as they claimed a seat across from Raelus, who was rubbing at his face with a napkin over a modest serving of lamb and flat bread, “I believe we were having a stimulating argument about the relative value of attempting just or good actions in a fundamentally unjust society?”

A collective groan went up. Before Raelus could open his mouth, Jan grabbed the back of Minke’s chair and dragged it across the room to another table, which raised a cheer from the guild.

From somewhere in either her sleeve, hair, or pocket, a little bird began to sing along.

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 1/21/2018 | REHOSTED 2/27/2024