Jake sat on a bar stool, looking around and reflecting on how quickly his life had changed. Here he was, sitting in a bar first thing in the morning. The city watch were dragging away the two unconscious thugs that he and Drak has incapacitated. And a completely unknown elf was pouring them each a shot of something brightly coloured and probably strong alcohol.
He hadn’t even had any breakfast yet.
“Can I have a glass of water too?” Jake asked, as the elf slid a drink in his direction. “Water essence user.”
The elf nodded, reached under the bar and lifted out a bottle of water, pouring some into a larger glass and pushing it over to Jake. He drank it straight back.
“So I’m having a bad morning, but you guys somehow look like you are having a worse one,” the elf commented with a smirk, sipping his drink.
Drak downed his shot in one and placed the glass back on the bar. He looked at Jake, uncertain of what to say and how much to give away to this stranger.
Jake sipped the brightly coloured drink, surprised that it was slightly sweet and minty in flavour. It wasn’t bad at all. “It has been a strange couple of days,” Jake admitted.
“Forgive my manners, my name is Asher Golfleaf,” the elf said, tipping an invisible hat to the pair. “I’m the owner of his humble bar, Goldfleaf Bar. Thank you for your assistance here this morning, is there something I can do to help you with your problems to say thank you?”
“I’m Jake and this is my business partner, Drak. Actually, we are hunting for a specific ingredient for a potion. Maybe you might have an idea where we could get it? Jake asked.
“Ah, alchemists,” Asher said with a nod. “I’ve dabbled a little myself across the years, especially to create the perfect additives to my liqueurs. What is the ingredient you are looking for?”
“Orm skin,” Drak replied.
Asher looked thoughtful for a moment. “I do know someone who can get some of that for you but it is expensive and rare stuff. I can definitely help you with it but I’d need an extra favour to make everything work. I’m a businessman after all.”
Jake finished his drink. “What kind of favour?”
“Nothing that would be too difficult for smart and resourceful young men like yourselves, especially with your water essence ability,” Asher replied. “And then I could acquire the Orm skin for you.”
“Okay, tell me more?” Jake asked.
“A little while ago, I had some shipments coming into The Husk and there was some incident. The barge was waylaid and one of my crates sunk. The favour would be a simple retrieval job. Grab my crate and bring it back to me intact.”
Jake opened his mouth to question the elf a little more about what he needed. But he didn’t get a chance.
“Sure, we can do that!” Drak announced enthusiastically. “Just tell us where to find it and we can go this afternoon!”
“That’s great news!” Asher said with a broad smile, waving his invisible hat with gusto. “It is always great when we can help each other out.”
Jake glanced at his partner and back to the elf. Why did he think there was something more to this ‘simple’ retrieval job than Asher was letting on? But they were committed to it now.
“Tell us more about the location and what size of the crate we are looking for,” Jake said, resigned to his fate.
Asher placed his invisible hat back on his head. “Well…”
-
Armed with a hand-drawn map of where they needed to go, Jake and Drak left the Goldleaf Bar to head to The Loop station. Their destination was in the heart of The Husk, an area of Hollowcrest that Jake had rarely visited.
Even Drak admitted that he didn’t go there often. But it was a simple job to follow the map from The Loop station to the spot where the shipment had vanished. Then it was simply a case of finding and retrieving it.
That was the plan, anyway.
The trip from Vine Road to The Husk meant retracing their steps from Jake’s first day to pass the station near Divine Square. The train then continued through to The Husk and they disembarked at the station Asher had marked on their map.
If Vine Roads was far from an urban area and looked like a jungle, The Husk was much more of a classic urban slum area. There were few trees or plants in sight, animals consisted mostly of feral dogs and cats as well as impressively large rats. It was the area of the city that people went to when they had no other real choice - it was overcrowded, rife with crime and generally not a fun place to spend too much time.
But if it got them the Orm skin they needed, Jake was willing to go wherever was needed.
They left the train carriage, up a flight of stairs and the crush of people immediately hit Jake. It was noisy with a wash of sounds, shouts and other noises hitting him as soon as they left the station. There were dirty children running through the crowds, doubtless picking pockets as they went. Two men were yelling at each, noses touching, just across from the station, with fists being thrown as the most likely outcome.
Drak nudged Jake and gestured to his left. Jake glimpsed at the map Asher had provided them and nodded in agreement. They carefully dodged around the arguing pair and started to follow their directions.
Asher’s map was easy to follow as he marked key buildings along the way rather than street names as there was little to suggest anything as official as a street name sign anywhere. Instead, they travelled by checking off stores, bars and other notable businesses that the elf had marked on the map.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
After half an hour of walking through the busy streets of The Husk, the pair found the canal marked on the map. They followed it until they reached the area marked on the map.
Drak turned to Jake. “Okay, my friend, time for you to go to work and find this missing crate.”
Jake turned to the canal and reached out, using his water essence with a Tier 2 spell to sense what was water and negative space in the water. He found an assortment of smaller items such as a suitcase, a bicycle and what seemed to be the skeleton of a large dog.
“Nothing yet,” he confirmed, seeing Drak pacing impatiently to one side. He found what might have been a humanoid skeleton but decided that wasn’t their problem today.
Drak glanced around. “Might be an idea to hurry it up,” he suggested.
Jake frowned. “Why? We are just looking for lost property in a public canal?” As he spoke, he located a square box that was just the right size for the crate they were seeking. He used another Tier 2 spell to make the water around it raise it from the canal floor and a Tier 1 spell that placed it on the path in front of them.
“About that,” Drak began but was interrupted by the sudden arrival of four burly men that instantly reminded Jake of the thugs they had dealt with at Asher’s place. There were two humans, a dwarf and a half-Orc.
“What’s going on here?” the dwarf asked. He seemed to be the one in charge of the group as the other three stood just behind him.
“We are just on a retrieval task,” Drak said with a big smile. “Our client lost something in the canal and we are just grabbing it for him.”
Jake sat on the edge of the crate for a moment and pulled a flask from his jacket, taking a long drink. Three spells in quick succession had left him feeling very dry and dehydrated.
“Ah,” the dwarf thug said thoughtfully. “But there’s a bit of a problem with that.”
“Oh?” Drak asked, feigning innocence.
“Yes, see the thing is, this is our territory. We run it, all the businesses in it contribute to our community protection fund and everything in the area belongs to us. That includes things in the canal,” he replied.
Here we go, Jake thought to himself, finishing the flask of water. There just had to be something that made the task complicated.
“I get what you mean but this crate belongs to our client, it was lost by accident while transporting through the area. He’s just getting back what belongs to him,” Drak replied.
The thug shook his head slowly. “Doesn’t work like that,” he said with false sadness in his voice. “See once it fell off the transport and into the canal, it became our property. That means if you take it away, you are stealing from us. And that’s not a good idea.”
Jake put the flask back into his jacket and reached towards one of the potions he had prepared. It might just give them the pause they need to grab the crate and get away.
But as he did this, the dwarf raised his hand and a small ball of flame appeared in his palm, turning slowly. Another of the group, one of the humans, clicked his fingers and a thin stream of water rose from the canal and began to circle his hand.
Drak glanced at Jake and his look gave a clear message - that they couldn’t win a fight against these professional thugs. “Okay, I get what you mean. We had no idea. So is there something we can do to get the crate back from you and take it to our client?”
The dwarf glanced at the half-Orc for effect, as if he didn’t know what to say. The half-Orc gave a lazy shrug.
“It isn’t so much as the cost of it but the value of it,” the dwarf replied.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Drak said, frowning.
“Well, the crate must be valuable enough for your client to get someone to come and get it for them. And there’s the fact that you were going to steal it from our territory. We can’t be allowing people to just help themselves to whatever they want, even if they didn’t know they were trespassing,” said the dwarf with his falsely sad tone.
Here it comes, Jake thought. He’d let go of the potion vial in his pocket and just sat on the crate. He noticed that two more thugs had joined the group, one standing behind Drak and the other standing over the other side of the crate from where Jake sat.
“So what are we talking about here then?” Drak asked, a touch of impatience seeping into his tone.
“That’s not up to me,” the dwarf admitted. “We need to take you back to our boss and have a chat with him, see what price he wants to set for the crate and associated damages.”
“I’m sure that’s not necessary, can’t we just come to an agreement here?” Jake asked.
The dwarf shook his head once again. “Sorry but this is above my pay-grade now. It has got to go to the boss and he needs to make a decision.”
Jake stood up, resigned once more to what was going on. “Come on then, let’s go and meet your boss.”
-
Jake and Drak followed the dwarf with the rest of the group following them. The half-Orc was carrying Asher’s crate. He led them through the alleys of The Husk and within a few minutes, Jake felt a bit disorientated with no idea of where they were in relation to the map he had from Asher.
He glanced at Drak and his friend gave a little shrug, clearly lost as well.
After walking for around 10 minutes, the group stopped outside a warehouse. It looked just like many others that surrounded the sides of the canal. The dwarf knocked on the smaller door and it opened with another dwarf peering out. The second dwarf nodded and opened the door for the group to enter.
Jake followed the dwarf as they moved through shelves stacked high with crates and other types of storage boxes that lined the walkways of the warehouse. Towards the centre of the warehouse, the crate stacks stopped and there was an open area that looked more like an office with a large wooden desk. Sitting behind it was a human with cropped black hair, grey eyes and a square jaw. He was physically imposing even though he wasn’t too tall. He sized up Jake then Drak for a moment.
“This is Gage, the boss,” the dwarf said. “Boss, these guys were taking a crate from the canal.”
“So stealing from us?” Gage said, playing into what the dwarf was saying. Jake had the feeling this wasn’t the first time these guys had done a pantomime like this.
“Yeah, although they aren’t locals and didn’t know it was our canal and therefore our crate,” added the dwarf.
“Ah, so an accidental theft,” the boss added, nodding. “Okay, so not the worst crime to have committed. What are we going to do then?”
The dwarf mimicked a thoughtful look. “I said we could maybe come to an agreement, that there was something they could do for us to make up for their mistake. And something that would let us release the crate to them as well.”
Gage nodded, looking down at his desk as if he was considering what he could task them with. Somehow Jake thought that he had really known exactly what he wanted from the moment they walked into the room.
“Here’s the thing,” Gage said. “I have this problem and I’m looking for a creative solution for it.”
“We are good at solving problems,” Drak said, a little of his confidence returning. Jake was unsure if this was a good thing or not.
“Good to hear,” the gang boss replied. “There’s this group of upstarts who are trying to take over some of my territory to the east of the canal. They aren’t important enough for me to send my guys, that would just give them too much credibility. They aren’t worth the attention of the Rat King. But I need to warn them off and give them a sense of the seriousness of trying to take me on.”
“You want us to negotiate with them to stop them from trying to take over your territory?” Jake asked. He noticed Drak’s eyes widening at the mention of the Rat King.
“Negotiate, threaten, whatever. I don’t really care. Blow them all up if you like that kind of thing. I just want them to stop being my problem and let me focus on the important stuff,” Gage replied, waving his hand dismissively. “You do this for me, I’ll give you the crate and we can call everything even.”
Jake glanced at Drak who gave a slight nod. “Okay, tell us where to find these guys,” Jake said.