Downtown Druid

This wasn’t how Dantes had hoped his first day helping out at the Vixen would go, but he was unconflicted about how to react to someone attempting to slap him. He swung his left arm down where the man’s arm bent then threw a punch, pointing the knuckle of his first finger, toward the man’s eye.

It struck true and the man dropped him, and Dantes immediately followed up his attack by grabbing the man’s shoulders and driving his knee into his crotch, hard.

The man crumpled, falling to his knees and stumbling backward before managing to get on all fours and bare his fangs.

It was meant to be intimidating, and to a certain extent he could see it working if they were in a dark forest, but in the middle of a street outside a whorehouse in broad daylight, not so much. Dantes let out a small laugh at the sight and pulled out his dagger.

The man eyeballed it and stood, grimacing at what Dantes imagined was a not insignificant pain in his balls, then shifting his expression to something more neutral. “You need to come with me,” he said.

Dantes kept the dagger raised. “I’m not on the menu here buddy. Even if I was, you couldn’t afford me.”

The man’s expression briefly twitched into a scowl. “It is your duty to come with me.”

“No, I’m pretty sure it’s not,” said Dantes. There was something oddly familiar about the man, but he didn’t feel keen to hear out someone that had grabbed him for no reason.

The man’s scowl widened further, showing sharp teeth again. He sniffed the air, and looked around. A few passersby had stopped to see what was happening, and Tieara was watching them through the doorway. The man pointed at Dantes.

Dantes raised his dagger and pointed it at the man, a confused expression on his face“And I’ll kick your ass then too” replied Dantes.

The man turned and started running away on all fours. Dantes tried to track him with nearby rat’s and roaches, but he was too fast, and before long he’d lost him.

Dantes frowned as he slipped his knife back into his belt.

“That guy was weird,” said Teiara, leaning heavily into Dantes.

Dantes nodded, and walked her back inside, taking his place to the side of the entrance. “Yeah.” He didn’t think too much of it. It wasn’t exactly uncommon to see a lunatic in the city every once in a while. He remembered a man that liked to run naked in a mask through the Guild District. Turned out to be nobility, so he just had to pay a fine. Then he started streaking through Midtown, and that led to a very different result.

“I had a customer like that once.”

Dantes raised an eyebrow.

“Liked to growl and pretend he was a dog. Some nobles cousin or some such. Never wanted me to sleep with him, just feed him food in a bowl and scratch his stomach.”

Dantes slowly raised another eyebrow as he listened.

Tieara laughed at his expression. “I figured you’d’ve seen things like that a few times. You seem to know your way around places like the Vixen.”

Dantes nodded. “I do, but there’s always some new vice or fetish to learn about I suppose.”

Shortly after that Tieara was sharing a drink with a young blushing sailor at the bar and Dantes was left to watch the door alone. He was clenching his jaw. He was still thinking about that strange man as he stood there, and he wasn’t sure why.

He shook his head lightly, attempting to clear it, and since things were slow, he sent his attention over to Jacopo. There was the usual mental handshake, and then Dantes found himself looking through the rat’s eyes as if they were his own.

Jacopo was in a dark alley, sniffing around the edges of a door. The sweet smell of freshly baked bread wafted out of the narrow crack, and Jacopo’s stomach growled. He continued sniffing, finding a small opening in the wall through which the smell was also drifting. He climbed up, and into it, but after he moved a few inches in, he slammed into a wall of invisible force. He squeaked the rat equivalent of saying ‘fuck’, and back out of the bakery wall, landing on the cobblestones and skittering away.

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That was the fifth such time that had happened. He had been able to enter any building except those that had the smell of food.

“Must be some kind of new enchantment that keeps rats out,” sent Dantes frowning. “They didn’t have anything like that when I was thrown in the Pit. It must’ve been developed later. Dantes had distinct memories of seeing rats or roaches scurrying around the edges of many restaurants and bakeries throughout Rendhold in the past. “Have you been to the areas I broadcasted to you yet?”

“No. I was hoping to satisfy my own hunger first.”

“Fair enough,” He said, leaning against a wall and eavesdropping on some third mate's pathetic attempts at flirtation. “Bakeries like that sometimes throw cart out their stock at the end of the day and sell it for a much lower price. Usually it gets scooped up by the shittier pubs in midtown for the next day. You might want to try then.”

“I want it fresh.”

“Alright, tomorrow morning I’ll get you something.”

“I want it fresh and I want to take it.”

“In that case we’ll need to figure something else out.” Dantes scratched his chin. If bakeries had that enchantment, there was a good chance that almost every building in Uptown would too. If Mondego and Mercedes had it put on their house, that would also be a problem. He’d need to find someone who could help him break the enchantment. He could maybe try Dario, but he didn’t seem the type to break the rules, just to bend them. Still, he may know someone Dantes could go to.

Jacopo moved out from the alley he was in, and started exploring block by block. Dantes followed along with him, updating his own mental map of the burrough with any changes he saw. For the most part, there were a lot more boarded up windows. Run down pubs had become even more run down dust dens, restaurants were openly serving cat and dog meat, and the women outside of brothels were covered in open sores, or scratching their necks like with bloodshot eyes like dustfiends, many of them far younger than they should be for that line of work.

That made Dantes’ jaw clench. He’d seen it before, brothels without standards. They’d get the girls addicted to dust to keep them in line, wouldn't hire priests for a monthly or even yearly cleansing, and would hire girls under fifteen. They would just use the girls up, and when they weren’t making them money any more, they’d be tossed on the street.

Midtown had always been a rough place. Dantes wasn’t seeing it through a rose tinted nostalgia. Everything bad that had ever happened to him had happened in midtown. His leg had been broken by a pimp, he’d been nearly drowned in a chamberpot, he’d watched his mother waste away from wight’s touch. Still, there had been good with the bad. People looked out for one another, the gangs were easier to deal with than the guard a lot of the time, and Mutts didn’t get a second glance. Now it just seemed like it was all bad.

Jacopo continued moving until he caught sight of a man wearing a breastplate and walking up the street with a scowl on his face. Windows and doors shut at his approach, whores disappeared down alleys, and one dealer actually scrambled up the side of a building and onto the roof. The man’s breastplate bore the winged sword insignia of the guard, though the standard sword at his hip was the more obvious indication of his profession. The man was tall, and leanly muscled, with dark hair that was thinning at the top, and a salt and pepper beard. His brows were furrowed as he walked with a clear destination in mind.

“Follow him,” requested Dantes to Jacopo.

Jacopo shrugged, he wasn’t having any luck with food anyway, and he started to walk behind the man while standing on the edges of the street and weaving between the legs of pedestrians who gave the guardsman a wide berth.

The man eventually turned at an alley, and walked down it. Three men bolted out of the alley before Jacopo could turn, but the one in the back had his collar grabbed before being thrown down back into it.

Jacopo turned the corner to see the guardsman standing and looking down at the man. He was young, with glassy gray eyes, and dirty clothes.

“Well hello there Ket. Heard you were back from your stint doing hard labor outside the walls. You start dealing again already?”

“P-Pacha, no no. I was just talking to some friends.”

Dantes recognized the name. Pacha was the guardsman that Zak had known. The one who was actually trying to do his job in midtown.

Pacha moved closer, and Ket scurried back until he hit a wall. He looked further back down the alley seeing only Jacopo the rat staring on in curiosity, and turned back to Ket, leaning closer to him to whisper. “Got any more info on Mondego yet?”

Ket whispered back. “No. And if you rough me up too often, they'll start to ask questions.”

“It’s been two weeks. I kept you out of the pit, and got your labor sentence reduced. You will pay the price for what you’ve done, one way or the other,” Pacha gripped his sword handle for emphasis.

“Alright alright. I’m working on some leads. I think they’re going to let me know where the warehouse is to pick up some dust from the docks. When I know, I’ll contact you.”

Pacha stood, and flicked a silver coin onto Ket’s chest. “Make sure you do. Don’t try to hide from me. You know there’s no place I won’t find you.” Pacha didn’t say it like a threat, he spoke it like a simple truth, and Dantes and Jacopo both believed him.

Pacha gave Ket a kick to the ribs. “Has to be convincing.” Then he walked out of the alley.

Ket managed a weak rude gesture at the back of his head.

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