The Word Goes Out
The guard’s rapier zipped and swished through the air at high speed, sending the Rogue scrambling backward, dodging and weaving as she went. The darkened hallway had provided excellent cover for the thief to ply her trade, but it had also kept the dark clothed guard concealed from her eyes as she lifted an expensive sculpted bust of Lord Fawendrin from a marble display pedestal. The Rogue had just wrapped the bust in protective plastic bubble wrap when she heard the distinct sound of a weapon being drawn from its sheath, and when she rolled away from the initial stab, the guard had pressed his attack.
The hallway she stood in with the poised guard, a Human like herself, was filled to the brim with elegant tapestries, brilliant framed paintings, and antique rugs worth more than the house she lived in. But of all of the pieces in the house that she had been checking out over the course of the last month, the bust she had in the bag dangling in her right hand was worth the most. This she had found out after showing a picture of it to a ‘business associate’ she frequently worked with by the name of Lee Toren.
“You shall return that item now, thief, or I shall run you through,” the guard hissed in the vast hallway, his voice coming back to him from the walls around him. The Rogue, grinning impishly, swung the bag back and forth in a pendulum motion.
“Just try it, friend,” she replied in a husky, masculine voice. To the guard, she would appear to be a slender man, and that was as it should be. After all, she was presently engaged in being William Deus, Headmaster of the Hoods and thief extraordinaire. “This thing may be wrapped up nice and snug, but if I smash it over your head, something’s bound to break. Maybe not the bust, but I’ll settle for your skull.” The guard took two steps forward, the tip of his rapier still pointed at her.
Anna Deus waited, backing away to match the guard’s pace, until she spotted the window she’d entered the house through on her left in her peripheral vision. “There needn’t be any unpleasantness,” said the guard, keeping his stance solid. “Simply put down the bag, and I shall let you leave this place post-haste. I shall have to inform the city constabulary, but I doubt they shall be any better at apprehending you than they have been in the past.”
“Ah, so you know who I am,” she asked, planting her left hand on her hip, standing proudly in the hallway. The guard offered her a small nod, but did not take his eyes off of her face.
“Indeed. Who in all of Desanadron does not know of the great William Deus,” he asked. He lunged then, but Anna anticipated his strike, leaping sideways out of the open window into the bushes just on the other side of the windowsill. She landed in a crouch, rolling backward through the shrubs and keeping herself tucked against the outside wall of the building. The guard came out immediately afterward, stepping through the brush and sweeping the benighted property left and right.
A rustling behind him caught the guard’s attention, and as he turned around to find the source of the sound, he found a pair of long blades resting against either side of his throat in an ‘X’. Holding the blades, a dour-faced Wererat in gray and black fatigues stared him straight in the eyes. “Tut-tut-tut, Mr. Jameson,” said Flint Ananham, shaking his head ever so slightly as Anna stepped lazily out of the bushes. “You’ve quite the reputation for chasing down anybody who intrudes on the property, but a reputation can be turned against you in seconds flat. See what I mean,” he asked, pressing the blades into the flesh just hard enough to draw a thin stream of blood on the left of the guard’s neck.
“If you’re going to kill me, just do it,” the guard, Mr. Jameson, whispered. He kept his eyes locked on the Wererat’s, unwilling to show any fear in the face of imminent death.
“Drop your weapon,” Anna said, stepping up beside Flint, addressing the guard. Jameson let the rapier drop from his right hand, keeping his face straight despite the cold sweat breaking out on his forehead. “Mr. Ananham, this man is now unarmed. You know what to do.”
“Yes sir,” Flint said, offering the guard a genuine smile. He sheathed one of his short swords, much to the guard’s surprise. “What, did you really think I was going to kill you,” he asked, cocking his head to one side. He shook his head slowly and ‘tut-tut’ed again. “We don’t work like that, Mr. Jameson. You’re unarmed, so I’m not going to hurt you. At least, not too bad, though you’ll likely have a headache in the morning.”
“What?” Flint raised his other sword and bashed the pommel against the guard’s temple, knocking him clean unconscious to the grassy lawn. The Wererat sheathed his weapon and knelt down next to the guard, quickly riffling through his pockets and pouches tied to his belt.
“What are you doing,” Anna asked, crossing her arms over her chest, the sack dangling in front of her stomach.
“Crime of opportunity, boss lady,” he said, pulling several platinum coins from one of the three pouches before he shoved them all into the backpack he carried everywhere. “Consider it a perk of the job.” Anna Deus heaved a sigh and tapped her foot, waiting patiently for her first-in-command to finish up. He got to his feet, and clapped her on the shoulder. “We’re good to go. I put the apology letter in his pocket like you asked,” he said.
“Good. Now let’s get back down home,” she said, moving away from the property via the escape route Flint had laid out days in advance. “Mr. Hollister already has a fence lined up for this beauty, and I love a good pay day.” Through the dark streets of Desanadron they fled, away from the Manor District. At the first available sewer access grate, Flint pulled out an oversized screwdriver, undid the one screw left in the grate and lifted it up, letting Anna climb down the maintenance ladder into the darkness of the sewer system running all throughout the underground of the city.
Anna pulled a flashlight from her belt and flicked it on, searching for the hidden signs that would indicate the direction they had to travel in to get to the Guildhall of the Hoods, her thieves’ guild. Spotting the scrawled riddle, she moved onward, leading the Wererat strong-arm thug behind her. “You know, I still can’t believe you don’t know all of the tunnels by heart,” Flint commented as they came to an intersection and Anna looked for the next signal.
“Quiet you. I don’t have a rat’s instincts or memory for being underground.” And in this fashion, they made their way towards their base.
Ignatius Stockholm lay in front of his fireplace in his animus form, an enormous crimson wolf curled in a ‘u’ before the flickering flames in the hearth, enjoying the heat and comfort of the quiet of his office/personal chambers. When a knock issued from the door, he lifted his shaggy head, grumbled, and said through his lupine lips, “It’s open.” Into his office stepped the infamous Gnome Pickpocket and self-proclaimed ‘gentleman’, Lee Toren. “Ah, Lee,” Stockholm said, stretching on all four legs. He padded over toward the Gnome, who stood eye level with the giant wolf, and sat on his haunches. He didn’t get to enjoy this form often, and he wasn’t about to stop for this constant thorn in his side. “What brings you here?”
“Actually, business of a sort, bucko,” Lee said, pulling in his gut. At just over four feet in height, Lee was the average size for a Gnome. His simple tan tunic shirt and pants and frizzy white head of hair concealed quite well one of the lands’ best and most wanted thieves, if one could but believe it. They also concealed one of the lands’ biggest wiseasses. “Oy, you wants a doggy biscuit, mate?” Stockholm growled, baring his teeth at the Gnome, who took a step back and chuckled. “Take it easy, take it easy. Actually, I’ve got news for you an’ Will, if’n he’s about anywheres.”
Stockholm turned his head to the left, checking the clock on the wall. Three-thirty in the morning, he thought. “He should be back soon with Flint,” he said, eyeballing Lee. “Quick job over at Councilor Maewen’s estate. What’s the news?”
“Well, my doggy friend,” Lee said, pulling a rolled scroll from seemingly thin air, “it’s time again for the Games.” He unrolled the scroll and turned it out toward Stockholm for his inspection. “As you can see, this is the Hoods’ official invite. And as you may also notice, I’ve been elected Head Judge for this year’s events.” Stockholm briefly scanned the document, though in his animus form, he had a considerable amount of trouble reading. Something in his thought process always changed when he was a wolf. Exiled I may be, he thought bitterly, but I am still a god. I should be able to read a piece of parchment.
“Who’s hosting this time around,” he asked.
“The Shades,” said Lee, putting the scroll away in one of his myriad pockets. “Mr. Twitch is their Headmaster these days. Odd chap by my estimation, but then again, what do I know?”
“Too much for my liking, more often than not,” replied the Red Tribe Werewolf, turning and heading back to his spot by the fireplace. “These Games, why did they even get started?”
“It’s a long standing tradition, mate,” Lee said, joining Stockholm on the floor in front of the fire. “Been doin’ it for years and years. It’s the only good way to see who’s who in the Guilds across the lands, what with the truce.” The Games, as they were called, was a series of contests held among a number of the most prominent thieves’ guilds across all of Tamalaria. Every four years the Games would be hosted by a different particular guild, and four neutral judges, usually independents, and a High Judge, would be nominated and elected by the various Guilds competing. This was Lee’s fourth time judging, his first time being High Judge. Hence, Stockholm thought, the shit-eating grin he can’t seem to get rid of.
“There are other ways to do it, I’m sure. Besides, we had three members arrested during the last Games, Lee. I’m not so sure it’s a good idea to compete,” Stockholm said, laying his head on his paws. Lee whistled a little to himself, rocking back and forth on his bottom. He pulled out the scroll again, and ran a chubby finger down a list near the bottom.
“The Midnight Suns are being invited this year,” he commented nonchalantly.
“We’ll be there.”
Elsewhere in the city of Desanadron, in an abandoned apartment building fitted to hold the city’s other large thieves’ guild, the Midnight Suns, Markus Trent sat in reflective thought upon his futon. The mattress lay flat on the floor, a single lumpy pillow for him to lay his head on languishing behind him, unused. Even for a Human Ninja, Trent was skinny nearly to the point of looking unhealthy. All things considered, including his diet, his recent lack of sleep, and his growing habit of keeping largely to himself in the solitude of his quarters, the Midnight Suns’ second-in-command held not a foul mood, but one of expectation.
He knew the time for the Games was coming soon, sometime in the near future. He had been listening to the ground-speak, as the Strong-arm Thugs called it, catching snippets of conversations mentioning the Games for the last few months. If the Suns were invited to this year’s Games, Trent would likely wind up being left in charge of the guild while Headmaster Thaddeus Fly attended.
Trent kept his eyes squinted shut against outer noises, and the light from the candles burning on the small altar he kept on the bench across the room from him. Standing in display cases and arranged on the table itself lay dozens of instruments of torture, many of them banned from the majority of civilized city-states and kingdoms for the inhumanity of the tools. But such things brought a sick sort of joy and comfort to Trent. If he needed them, he had them on hand.
And some of them had cost him a pretty penny, too. He had not been able to collect all of them via theft or rummaging through the lower regions of the west’s towns and villages. A few had been held on to covetously by other ‘collectors’ of such things, men and women who shared in Trent’s fascination with the macabre and painful. Ultimately, he weaseled his way into purchasing many of the items. On one occasion, he’d sent Mr. Striker to a collector to conclude the bargain.
Striker, Trent thought. What is he? Why does he make everybody so nervous? What is it about him that drives everyone away, usually trembling with fear? Trent had no answers to those questions, but while the Headmaster was away at the Games, he would be keeping very close tabs on the mysterious pirate-looking operative named Mr. Striker. If need be, he would even take the opportunity to employ some of his lovely tools.
Within the very same building, down in the basement, Thaddeus Fly, Black Draconus (dragon man) Ninja and Headmaster of the Midnight Suns proceeded through the movements of a complicated self-defense kata, performing his movements with the same speed and force as he would in a real combat. The tetsujin, or metal training dummies, dispersed around the chamber clanged and rocked back and forth as he performed his maneuvers.
Familiar territory, yes?
Fly finished his routine and bowed to the weaving tetsujin, grabbing a towel from a nearby wall hook and wiping down the sweat-streaked scales of his face. A subtle chill whispered through the air, and he kept himself facing the wall as he slung the towel over his shoulder. “Akimaru?”
“Yes, sensei,” said the quiet drone of the white-clad Ninja from the training area’s doorway, behind Fly. Since their quest to attain the Glove of Shadows before Deus and his Hoods could get a hold of it, Fly had discovered this single way of detecting the approach of the mysterious white clad Ninja, whose face was permanently hidden from the world behind his white cloth mask.
“You bring me news,” Fly asked, turning around and approaching the doorway. Akimaru stood a good half a foot shorter than the Black Draconus at least, and his frame, much like Trent’s, occupied very little space. Standing with his heels together, his hands behind his back, Akimaru graced Fly with a small bow from the waist, inclining his head as well. When he looked up, Fly saw the reflection of his own dark, scaled face in Akimaru’s purple eyes. “What is it?”
Akimaru snapped one of his hands out in front of him, bringing up a scroll wrapped around a pair of wooden rollers in the olden way. Fly took the scroll and unrolled it, holding it out to one side so that both Ninja could read over the words inked upon the parchment. Fly scanned every word, committing the scroll to memory, though that wasn’t essentially necessary. He rolled the scroll back up, and handed it back to Akimaru.
“The Games,” said Fly, leading Akimaru down the connected hallway to the stairs up to the ground floor, weaving through the darkness of the basement with ease. “I thought we had more time,” he grumbled. As he ascended into the torchlight of the west wing hallway of the building, he stopped and turned to his white clad ally and confidante. “I don’t suppose it would do me any good to try and have you stay behind and keep things running, would it?”
“No, sensei, it would not,” replied Akimaru.
“Well, Trent has gotten rid of a lot of his grudges toward me over the last couple of years,” Fly said, moving down the hall again, nodding to his operatives as they bowed before scuttling out of his path. “Akimaru, go and inform him at once. Then take the scroll to Rage, Potts and Weeks, and tell them they’re coming with us,” he said. He slid the door open to his personal quarters and stepped inside.
“And what of Ms. McNealy,” Akimaru asked hesitantly. Fly reached behind him for the door, but did not yet close it.
“While Markus Trent keeps an eye on the guild, Lain will keep an eye on Mr. Trent. That is all, Akimaru.” He slid the door closed, and felt the chill fade away into the distance. Akimaru was nothing if not expedient with his orders. At least, the ones he accepted.
Far to the east, in the city of Arcade, the streets stood nearly empty as morning approached. Arcade had returned to the sort of lawless no-man’s land that it had been before Lord Viper had tried making it a respectable city-state, but there were certainly rules and laws to be obeyed. But the rules largely consisted of the unspoken sort, the kind of rules that, if you didn’t know them, well, you didn’t have no business bein’ in Arcade, fetch me meanin’, mate? Of course ya does.
In the upstairs apartment over one of the township’s few nearly-reputable businesses, a bakery shop, a heavyset Wererat sat with his feet up on the kitchen table as he leaned back in a rickety chair, looking over today’s copy of ‘The Arcade Times’. The newspaper was another of the semi-legitimate businesses running in the city, and most of the goons and criminals of the city’s populace let it alone. After all, they wanted information too, and they didn’t have access to the fancy and expensive machines the Bounty Hunters’ Association used to keep track of the less savory elements of Tamalaria.
The big lycanthrope was actually one of five who lived in the building. He and one other Wererat, a woman by the name of Esmerelda Logan, shared the apartment over the bakery. In the basement of the building, one would find another shabby little apartment, that one occupied by Gabe and Seth Logan, two of Esme’s many brothers. And in the back of the bakery itself, usually running the place, was Stephanie Claudis, also a Wererat woman, but not related to the rest of the pack living in the building.
Stretching, the large male with his feet on the table in the upstairs apartment rose from his seat, scratching his armpit through his thick leather armor shirt. A knock, faint as the whisper of the wind, came from the door of the apartment that led directly to a staircase on the outside of the building. Hmm, thought the heavyset Wererat, somebody got past the traps on the stairs. They must be good.
Good or lucky.
As the boss of the group of Wererats living in the bakery, making it their headquarters, the muscular rat didn’t like taking chances. So before he went to answer the knock at the door, he moved over to the automated ice box across the room from him, pulling it along silently on its rollers away from the wall. He reached behind it, and withdrew a baseball bat he’d had specially commissioned at a smithy’s in Palen. Made entirely out of titanite, one of the most potent and rare metals in the continent of Tamalaria, the blunt weapon weighed a solid sixty pounds. The Wererat usually swung it one-handed with ease, a sure sign of his brute strength.
Jefe Gabriez, Wererat Strong-arm Thug and boss of the Pack of Liars, liked things nice and simple. If he didn’t want the visitor outside the door to be here, he’d crack his skull like an egg.
Holding the bat by the handle end, wrapped in black electrical tape for a better grip, Gabriez reached out for the doorknob and turned it quickly, stepping back to pull the door open and put himself in a better swinging position. Standing on the other side of the doorway was a dapper Human fellow, dressed in what appeared to be garb more typically associated with the position of a butler, not a man who could disarm or avoid the traps around the property. In his left hand, he held a scroll.
“Who the fuck’re you,” Gabriez asked, taking a step forward, bat raised over his head.
“Please excuse the interruption, Mr. Gabriez,” said the Human in a distinct northland accent. He tucked his right arm, palm up, under his chest and gave the lumbering Wererat a formal bow. “My name is unimportant, Mr. Gabriez. What is important is this,” he said, holding forth the scroll. Gabriez took another large step forward, snatched the scroll with is free hand, and was back by the table in seconds. Yes, he was big and muscled, but he wasn’t too much slower for all of that.
Gabriez unrolled the scroll parchment and stared at it in wonder, reviewing its contents several times before rolling it up and putting it on the table, smiling from ear to ear. The Games, he thought, we’ve finally arrived. “Thank you for bringing this to us,” he said, but when he looked for the butler-type, he found the doorway stood bare. He would have to tell Gabe, Seth and Esmerelda the moment they sat down for tonight’s meeting, before they each went about their own business for the gang. He would tell Stephanie too, because she’d be coming with, but the others would have a better appreciation for the importance of being invited to the Games.
The Logans were Jefe Gabriez’s cousins, or at least, some of them, as was someone else whose presence at the Games he hoped to be in for long enough to actually get to know the man, their third-oldest cousin, Flint Ananham.
“Trust me, mister, nobody’s going to hear you sssscream,” rasped the Lizardman as he ran the apple peeler along his captive’s right index finger, shaving off a long, bloody strip of flesh. The man in the restraining chair screamed and thrashed into his ball gag and the straps, but to no avail. When his bucking ceased momentarily, and only soft moans came from behind the gag, the Lizardman Thug looked over to the other side of the dank chamber. Lined with soundproofed steel and padding, the ‘questioning chamber’ of the Koikara Group’s headquarters in Blackwood reeked of piss, sweat, and fear. But the Human woman the Lizardman torturer was looking at didn’t seem to mind it much. She’d been here often, in fact.
She nodded, and the Thug stepped away toward the pressurized door leading out of the chamber. The woman followed him, and when they closed the door behind them, they stood in a plain but comfortable lounge-style chamber. The woman settled herself on a genuine leather high-backed chair on one side of a coffee table, the Thug sitting opposite her on a plain black couch. Over at a sophisticated computer (by Tamalarian standards) in the corner of the chamber sat a Gnome gentleman, white-haired like most, but with a definitive lack of beard and moustache. Even from the profile view his position offered the woman, she could see he’d been trimming it down yet again, until it was little more than a handlebar and goatee.
“Were you able to dive in and get what you wanted, ma’am,” asked the Lizardman Thug.
“Yes, as a matter of fact I did, Victor.” She took a sip of coffee from an elaborately painted cup sitting before her on the edge of the coffee table. The saucer it rested on, along with the rest of the fine china laid out on the table from the lunch the three of them had shared before the ‘questioning’ began, was worth more than the average Elven Kingdom citizen’s monthly salary. Sally Ridge accepted only the finest. “Norbert, how are our operations going in Whitewood,” she asked of the Gnome in the corner.
“We’ve managed to offload a good deal of goma on the younger Cuyotai living in the city. Mostly high school kids,” the Gnome said. Goma, a substance concocted in the unofficial labs belonging to the Koikara Group throughout the Elven Kingdom. The Koikara Group’s primary and legitimate source of business was the import and export of high quality wooden products, everything from furniture to the supply of Kingdom wood to construction companies operating in other city-states and kingdoms. Underneath the tables, however, a select core of the management staff were in fact some of the most efficient criminal minds in the whole of the Elven Kingdom.
That core included the current owner of the company, Sally Ridge. The information she’d wanted from the man in the questioning chamber she obtained by having Victor, the Lizardman Thug, reduce his mental willpower to nothing. When his mind was frail and weak, she had used her Psychic powers to dive into his mind and pluck the information she needed from him. The man had been a member of middle management, and had started skimming profits from his team of sellers on the street.
The group was now involved in the production and distribution of designer narcotics, most of which had been cooked up in the unlisted labs owned by Ridge and her handful of closest allies. The sales of the drugs more than made up for the low points the company sometimes suffered. “Excellent,” she said to Norbert. The Gnome, a Pickpocket and Pyromancer by Class, was in charge of keeping tabs of the numbers for her, since she had so much else to take care of within the company.
“What of Mr. Stanley,” asked Victor, leaning toward her. “We have the info now. What do we do with him?” Ridge only gave him a look and a small twitch of her lips to let Victor know. “Right then,” he said, moving back toward the questioning chamber. As he closed the door, a knock came at the door into the lounge. Sally rose from her seat, cracking her neck and probing through the door for the mind on the other side. To her surprise, she found an enormous mental barrier blocking her out.
Someone had done their homework.
Expecting it to perhaps be one of her trusted advisors, Sally Ridge nearly reached for the long knife she kept tucked inside the back of her long brown skirt when she opened the door and found herself looking at a total stranger. The man appeared to be a butler of some sort, complete with a monocle over his right eye and a bow tie at his neck. In his right hand the man held a scroll, which he held out to her after offering her a deep and formal bow. “My lady, I hereby present this to you,” said the man. Hmm, she thought, northlander. When she took the scroll, the man turned and strode back down the hallway.
Sally poked her head out into the hall, and found the six armed Minotaurs posted to security on this hallway laying unconscious on the floor. “He’s good, whoever he is,” she said aloud. She closed the door and returned to her seat as Victor exited the questioning chamber, wiping his bloodied hands on a wet rag. “Did Mr. Stanley fit down the chute?”
“Yeah, after I carved some of that gut off of him,” Victor replied. “What’s that,” he asked, pointing to the scroll. Sally opened the scroll, and after she finished reading it, handed it to Norbert Channel.
“Contact Mr. Joelly and Mr. Turpin. We’re going to the Games.”
“Amanda?” The Illeck woman lay staring out of the window of the grubby hotel room she presently resided in. Over by the bathroom door, another Illeck female, standing as naked as the day she’d been born, turned toward the bed.
“Yes, Helen,” she said, running a brush through waist-length, raven-black hair.
“What do you suppose the others are doing right now,” Helen asked, running a hand over her own bare stomach.
“Does it really matter,” asked Amanda, coming over to the bed and laying atop the other woman. The moisture from the shower still clinging to her, Amanda brushed her fingers over the other woman’s cheek, working slowly down to her throat, and then down over the swell of her bare chest. “We’re supposed to be taking some time off, so here we are,” she whispered. With the barest movement she flicked one of Helen’s nipples, getting an immediate and satisfying reaction from it as it stiffened in the dank gloom of the chamber. “And might I add, it’s been quite a day off so far.”
The Illeck women giggled, reaching their hands through one another’s hair, their mouths locked on one another. Before anything more could progress, however, a soft knock came from the locked door of the hotel room. They looked in unison at the door, and then to one another. “We should probably see what they want,” said Helen, leader of the Sisters of Night. She gently pushed Amanda up off of her, handing the Illeck Illusionist her pale red bathrobe and taking her own sky blue one down off of its hook by the dresser. “Coming,” she called to whoever was out in the hallway.
When she opened the door, Helen expected that it would be Cailee Parthridge, the only Cuyotai member of the Sisters of Night. Cailee somehow always knew where to find her when she had important news, but the short, tan furred lycanthrope was not their visitor. Instead, a man in a butler’s tuxedo stood before her, a subtle grin on his lips. In his right hand he held a tightly bound scroll. “Madam, I hereby present you with this,” he said, handing the scroll over to the Ileck Rogue. Helen took it in her hand, and watched the butler-type saunter away down the hall toward the check-in desk.
“Well, what is it,” Amanda asked. Helen unrolled the parchment, and with Amanda’s head resting on her shoulder, the two women read the finely curved script from top to bottom. When she finished reading it, Helen reached back with her right hand, down to the softness of Amanda’s thigh.
“It’s a reason to celebrate, sweetness,” she said.
The Lizardman Ronin lashed out again with a vicious kick to the side of the shop owner’s head. The connecting strike sent the little Gnome reeling, knocking over shelf after shelf of his small snack displays. “You’re late again Mr. Forin! We do not tolerate such insubordination from our clients! Watari! Show him we mean business.”
The convenience store’s doors had been locked up and secured by three other men in the group. The first was Nobuo Kentaro, an Illeck Boxer. His hands were covered in enchanted gloves that would allow him to stun anyone he struck with even a single blow. The second man, guarding the back door out into an alley, was Jake Zero, a Sidalis (mutant) Soldier and student of the art of sword dancing. And lastly, keeping watch on the stairs up into the apartment over the store itself was Koby Nellis, a Wererat Rogue who had signed on with the Lizardman because, well, he needed the cash.
Watari Ichigo, the Human the Ronin had addressed, was an enormous man for a Human being, thickly muscled and sporting heavy duty silver armor. A Fallen Knight, he had no qualms picking up the Gnome by the hand from the floor and bending two of his fingers all the way back to his wrist, fracturing them with brutal speed. The shopkeeper screamed aloud, holding his wounded hand to his chest as Watari dropped him.
The Ronin Lizardman, Kimichi Kazuya, leaned down until his snout was almost brushing against the Gnome’s nose. “You have two days to get us our money, my friend. After that,” he said, standing upright. He shrugged his shoulders, as if to say, ‘hey, after that, it isn’t my neck on the line’. “Boys! Let’s go,” he called out. The five men moved out of the store, heading down the street for the hideout for their gang, the Lenak Petara.
When they got back, the twenty or so other members of the gang were lounging about, several of them with prostitutes sitting in their laps, laughing and carousing with one another. Kazuya shook his head, while Watari grabbed the back of the nearest whore’s neck and lifted her up bodily, leading her away toward his private chambers for a roll in the hay. Jake Zero, the mutant Soldier, followed Kazuya all the way to the back of the building, into his office.
Kazuya’s ‘office’ as it were was little more than a spare bedroom in what used to be a large estate manor for a warlord from the early Fifth Age, six or seven hundred years ago. He flopped down in the swivel chair on the other side of an aged desk, and pulled one of the drawers open. He took from it a large bottle of whiskey and two glass tumblers, each one made of fine crystal. “May I offer you a drink, Jake?”
“Please, sir,” replied the Sidalis. All Sidalis, or mutants as they were more commonly called, had several physical deformities. Were it not for these, the Sidalis Race could easily be mistaken for common Humans, the most prevalent of all of the Races in Tamalaria. Many members of their species had deformities that could be easily concealed, such as extra digits or eyes or patches of discolored flesh. Jake Zero was not quite so fortunate.
Jake Zero had four arms.
But every Sidalis also had a trade-off for these mutations, a Sidalis Power. These powers and abilities were usually of a semi-magical nature, but could not be defended against in the same way as spells cast by mages. Jake Zero’s particular Sidalis Power had come in quite handy on a number of occasions.
He could create temporary duplicates of almost any inanimate object he touched with any of his four hands. The Lenak Petara largely financed their operations in the beginning of their existence several years ago by having Zero duplicate rare and priceless items at the marketplace in the township of Ricco, and then turning around and selling the copies at cutthroat prices. Eventually, shop owners started paying Kazuya to keep Zero from doing just that, thus saving their own business and establishing the ‘protection fees’ that fueled the gang to this day.
Not long after the protection fees started, however, several of the customers that had purchased the clones of these rare items had come back around, claiming that the copies had turned to dust after only a few short days in their possession. “Ah, but you get what you pay for,” Kazuya had told most of these men before cutting them in half with his katana. Now he sat in his office across from his most trusted lieutenant in the gang, sharing a quiet glass of whiskey while the rest of his men drank and cavorted in the rest of the old manor.
“Sir, have you given any thought to my proposal from last month yet,” asked the mutant. He sipped his drink quietly, watching his leader’s eyes for a reaction.
“Not as yet, Watari. Expansion right now just doesn’t seem like a good idea. We need to get some more organization in the ranks before we can,” he said. A sudden commotion out in the hallway cut his words short. “What is that?” As both men stood and faced the door, they heard the brandishing of weapons out in the hallway, followed by ‘hoomph’s, ‘oof’s and other muffled sounds of combat. A minute later, silence fell over the rest of the manor, and a soft rapping came at the door. Watari reached down for his long sword, but Kazuya stayed him with a hand on his shoulder.
He opened the door of his office inward, and standing in front of him was a dapper butler, complete with monocle and the sort of tuxedo appropriate to the role. In his right hand he held a old fashioned scroll. Behind him, dozens of Kazuya’s men lay unconscious or groaning, beaten and bruised. “Lord Kazuya?”
“I am no lord anymore,” the Lizardman Ronin grumbled, shifting in his ceremonial armor uncomfortably at the sound of his old title. “What do you want?”
“For you, sir,” the butler said, offering the scroll to the Ronin. Kazuya took it, and with that, the butler bowed and turned away, striding easily over his fallen opponents. Hmm, Kazuya thought, northland accent. Maybe from the Freehold States? He rolled the scroll open, reading the fine print on the parchment. When he finished, he laughed a little, handing it over to Jake Zero.
“Get the men from the store and tell Mitsuru she’s in charge. We’re going to the Games.”
In the township of Whistlie, southwest of the grand city of Ja-Wen by about four days’ travel on horse, stands a mecha specialty dealership. This technology store thrived for several dozen years under the guidance of George Stockton, a Gnome Engineer with a keen eye for good tech. When it became time for him to write out his will, he left the store and all of its contents to his only son, Paul.
Paul Stockton, a Gnome Engineer himself and also a fairly good Pickpocket, had been a bit of an oddity growing up in Whistlie. He made friends easily in grammar school in his youth, and even now, at the young age (by Gnome standards) of one-hundred and fifty-six years old, he ran the shop smoothly and with a decent amount of success. Of course, he had help keeping the business afloat from his staff, many of whom he felt were the best friends he could ever find for himself.
‘Tacha Forus’, the shop was called, Gnome for ‘Machinists’ Choice’. Paul maintained that same title for the little group of chums he worked with outside of the shop, gents who could, in a pinch, be trusted to go scavenging in the various ruins scattered throughout the realms of Tamalaria. In that way, the Tacha Forus hardly qualified as a thieves’ guild, but because they did occasionally resort to robbing the competing tech shops in Whistlie, Ja-Wen, and Camdor to the southeast, they met the standards. And they weren’t bastards about it, Paul saw to that. If they were ever caught out by their competitors, Paul made sure that the items taken were returned, and they even paid a ‘penalty fee’ for being so clumsy about things. He was a Pickpocket with some sort of honor that way, folks supposed.
But his ‘side business’ wasn’t public knowledge, and as such, his shop continued doing well. When he walked in late one evening to check on the repair job a customer wanted done on an old firearm, he found Robert Saffis, a Khan Soldier, seated in the scavenge pit in the middle of the shop. “Oy there, Rob. What’s this then?” The Khan, short and a bit wiry for his Race, gave his boss a lopsided grin. In times of need, he was often left in charge of the shop.
“Oh, our guys from the coast dragged this stuff in today,” he said. Along with the wiry frame, Saffis did not have the raspy, gravely voice mostly associated with the Khan people. The tiger-men weren’t known for being friendly, but a person could hardly help but smile at the high-pitched and tittery voice of Robert Saffis. If they laughed, well, that was another matter altogether.
“Anything worthwhile,” Paul asked, moving toward the workbench with the dismantled firearm. He put on his safety goggled, grabbed a small toolbox from under the bench, and started rummaging for the necessary tools for the job.
“Not thus far. Brailor’s working on that autocart Tom Bullhound brought in yesterday, but he isn’t having much luck with it. He’s got it in the garage across the street.”
“Good, good,” Paul replied, twisting a small cleaning tool around in the barrel of the automatic pistol. “Ken?”
“Oh, he took the day off. His sister’s kid’s birthday party,” said Saffis.
“And Mr. Brady,” asked Paul Stockton.
“Where else? He’s in the office,” Saffis said with a sigh. “Can I maybe get one of the younger guys to look through all of this junk? Kelly wanted to go see the band play over at Sweeney’s Place tonight,” Saffis said, walking over to stand behind the Gnome.
“Sure thing, Robbie,” replied Paul. He worked a small dent in the interior of the barrel out with a small pressure tool, not taking his eyes off of his work for even a moment. “Get Sam or Freddy on it, but I want it done by ten tonight. No sense in having anybody here past then. How is Kelly, by the way?”
“She’s doing well, Paulie.” Robert already had his long denim jacket on over his shoulders, adjusting it and checking to make sure he had his invitation passes into the club on Seventeenth Street, Sweeney’s Place. Invitation passes had cost him twenty-five gold pieces per ticket, and he didn’t want them to go to waste, that was for sure. Paulie already knew that.
“So, how long have you two been seeing each other now,” the Gnome asked, looking away from his work and lifting up his goggles. The Khan appeared to be calculating in his head, and he buttoned his cuffs.
“Eighteen months now,” said the Khan. “I’m thinking I might ask her to move in with me tonight,” he said, trying to cover the excitement in his voice.
“That might be a bit premature,” said an unfamiliar voice. Both men looked over toward the salvage heap, and standing atop it, perfectly balanced on a single steel beam of some sort, was a man in a butler’s outfit, a scroll in his right hand. He hopped down from the heap and sauntered over to the two men, Robert baring his teeth and snarling low in his gut. He didn’t like the scent of this man with the northland accent, not in the least. He smelled of death and despair. The butler fellow handed the scroll over to Paul, and then offered the two men a bow before turning and walking away toward the back entrance of the shop.
Paul opened the scroll, and reviewed the writing with a critical eye. He hefted a sigh, took off his goggles, and laid them on the workbench. He looked up at Robert, and gave him a small shake of his head. “Enjoy your date tonight, Robbie, but that man was right. We’ve been invited to the Games.”
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