Arthur waited in his seat for around two and a half hours for the leading members of the Black Eye gang to start arriving one by one. It started with a few that looked no different than simple thugs before the first one that stood out arrived. It was a human man with quite pale skin for someone who wasn’t a noble and dressed in well above average clothing. He was followed by a second younger man who was dressed in a similar way, but even his skin was tanned a little from the sun.
The next to arrive was a very tall and brown skinned man. Unlike all the other gang leaders he was bald and abnormally tall, even for a human. Arthur estimated he was about six and a half feet tall. Behind him was a younger woman with tanned but pale skin that one would expect from the area. She wore a simple set of leather armor that stood out from what everyone else wore from the color to the design, just like her boss who wore some more expensive clothes than everyone else.
The third gang leader of note was an older woman that reminded Arthur of an assassin by the way she walked along with the two younger women that followed her. The three were all dressed in dark and simple clothes but were unmistakably well made despite their appearance. While their clothes were not skin tight they were quite slim yet still looked very dangerous. The two steel daggers the three either carried or kept sheathed also helped with that look. This group was definitely the most dangerous of the group.
‘Perhaps it was a good thing that I left on that day I arrived to kill them all. I didn’t really have a plan then and that older woman still looks very dangerous despite her age.’ Arthur inwardly gave a small thanks to that lone gang member that surprised him on that day and gave him motivation to leave.
But now Arthur had tier two spells at his disposal and unless those three women knew how to fly through the top half of a door frame there was very little they would be able to do to him while he was outside the room slinging spells at them.
Once Arthur was certain that all the gang members were, he walked over to the bartender with the cup and plate he used and handed them over as he sat on a nearby chair. The bartender smiled and took them before taking a quick look around and whispering “That is all of them, they should be starting their meeting soon.”
Arthur gave a small nod and waited a moment as he secretly gave a few looks around the room to be sure no one was watching him before he walked towards the staircase and slowly up towards the meeting room. Arthur walked slowly and avoided any of the squeaky boards to prevent noise, but as he got closer he realized he didn’t really need to as the gang leaders were speaking very loudly within that room.
“Why on the earth we walk on should we even pursue drugs!? Just because this one worked doesn't mean we should go all in and start dealing in grey sugar!” A female voice shouted, most likely the older woman at someone in the room. This grey sugar was an unfamiliar term to Arthur, but the use of the word drug gave him a clearer picture of what they were talking about.
“I hate to say this Kelile, but she does have a point. Even if we were on board how we would even manufacture the stuff, it would require an alchemist with knowledge of tier two spells for even the simplest of compounds, tier three spells for anything large scale like you suggested. And don’t forget about all the alchemists that we have currently gone through trying to find someone willing to take part.” A more elegant voice said to someone named Kelile, clearly they have been contacting alchemists for some reason. ‘I wonder why they haven't gotten into contact with me yet.’
“Of course I haven't, do you take me for a fool? We have only contacted a few and even then we only needed to kill one because we were far too direct with our approach. Since then we have been far more careful and even located a few candidates that could help us with a little coercion.” A deeper and more ruthless voice spoke, making Arthur feel as if he had grown a pit in his stomach.
“So we are just going to ignore the fact that you suggested that we use an experimental explosive black powder to blow the top floor of that alchemist's store right off for everyone to see. We are very lucky we managed to point the detectives towards one of his former apprentices with a little planted evidence. Otherwise they might have been looking into whoever you found to supply that thing.” The female voice spoke again. By this time Arthur was up against the doorframe and listening in on the conversation that was happening.
“We are going to put that to the side for the time being as we currently have no reason to worry about that. We managed to push the suspicion to someone else and we have several people that are more than capable of doing what we need them to do for a small cut of the profits, I have already begun negotiations with each of them.” The deep voice said.
“You did this without our input!? Are you trying to get yourself killed Kelile!? You should have contacted us about this first and we could have come to a decision as a group, that is the reason why we formed the Black Eye gang, to keep each other from making terrible mistakes and for mutual benefit. If you keep this up you may find yourself removed from us.” The softer and elegant voice said as Arthur slowly placed several handfuls of dirt on the floor in front of him.
“I agree, and I can personally assure you that I will never be in support of selling grey sugar to the masses. Do you have the slightest idea what being addicted to that event does to people!? It drives them insane, the symptoms also have a very large range from not eating for extended periods of time to rapid changes in moods from happy to violent in seconds! And I haven’t even gotten into the physical changes that happen in those that repeatedly use it!” The female voice was practically shouting at this point, Arthur half expected the people from downstairs to be hearing her full rant.
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“That obviously isn’t the only magical alchemical based drug I am interested in producing, there are several others from Magic Ice or even Red Stars. I am not one to keep all my eggs within one basket, I am quick to diversify into many different things.” The rest of the table turned to look at the source of the deep voice as he said this. For almost a full minute the rest of the table simply looked at him with disbelief, they had no words to use for what he just said as he sat there uncomfortably asking “What is it?”
“Have you been consuming your own supply of swamp weed!?”
“Have you gone mad!? What possessed you to think of this!?”
“This is the worst idea that I have ever heard of since the beginning of this.”
Everyone else at the table insulted the source of the deep voice after a moment to think about what he said. “What do you mean by that! You all wanted solutions for our money problem and I found one! But none of you are interested in it at all despite your best idea being collecting protection money!” The deep voice started shouting at the other gang leaders and he could be heard standing by Arthur just outside the room.
“You all considered swamp weed, what is the difference between that and harder substances like grey sugar!” A loud bang could be heard as the deep voice slammed his fist on the table.
“The difference is the side effects of these harder substances on the users and how they impact society. The reason why those who deal in that stuff typically only sell to nobles is because they have a steady income of money that is unlikely to change, even wealthy commoners don’t have that because they need to maintain whatever business or other source of income they have. That isn’t even counting what grey sugar or red stars does to people with prolonged use.” The elegant voice could also be heard standing as he said this to his colleague.
“And what might those side effects be if you are so knowledgeable in this?” The deep voice asked in a mocking tone.
“Grey sugar, for example, messes with the moods and emotions of its users at almost completely random, it also can give them a drive to go and do something, typically something dangerous to themselves or others and they are usually more than willing to hurt others for that drive. That magic ice you suggested can keep people awake for hours or even days at a time if you continue consuming it, and I don’t think I need to explain why that is bad. Red stars is by far the worst of that trio that you came up with, there is a reason why it is called the cursed drug and no others have that name. The transformations whether they be real or not keep just about anyone with common sense away from them.” The woman who had been speaking who Arthur also suspected of standing up at this point based on the moving chair said in response to the deep voices' mockery.
“If that is the case then why haven’t I heard anything about this? I have been transporting drugs with my gang for quite some time before the purge happened and nothing of that sort was ever a factor.” The tension in the room was so thick it could have been cut with a knife.
“Because the crown and any other competent government keeps that hidden from the public eye. Only people with very deep ties to the underworld or high ranking government officials know such information. Since you were just a small timer before the purge it is unsurprising that you didn’t know then, but given just how much influence we have over what is left we expected that you would at least do the bare minimum of research on the topic before you brought it up.”
The conversation continued on as Arthur finished placing all the dirt he had on the ground before him. He easily brought enough for around two hundred small earth projectiles to bombard the room with. But he waited for a good opportunity as casting the Earth Barricade spell was an investment of both mana and timing.
“Well how was I supposed to know that there were horrible side effects regarding these drugs, I assumed the worst of them was their addictive nature and high production cost. I intended to have the swamp weed for the general populous and the more expensive drugs for nobles that are interested. Do any of you have any better ideas as to what to do?” The deep voice began complaining and looking to his allies for an answer.
“Well for starters we are each specialized in our own trade, if we want to be effective then we need to remain within it. But to do that we will require a bit of starting capital, I for example am well versed in the art of forging documents and fencing goods. To start up any proper operations regarding those things would be much smoother if you were to lend me some of your money earned through the swamp weed sales.” The elegant voice said as the ruffling of some papers could be heard from just outside the room.
“In that case my people won’t be all that much of a help for the time being, since we are thieves through and through. Since the purge most of our enemies have either been killed off or went into hiding and haven’t been heard from since, that leaves us with very little to steal.” The older woman said.
“If you would just sign here I can guarantee you a 3 percent repayment every month for the next 33 months, this here is the list of clauses and other legally binding bits.” The elegant voice said as the sound of something being slid across the table could faintly be heard. “Fine!” The deep voice said with a hint of annoyance clear in his tone.
Suddenly one of the other far less important leaders at the table who had a clear view of the doorway noticed something that wasn’t there before. Some weird brown colored stick thing was in the doorway blocking the bottom half. “Hey, what is that?” He said as he leaned forward to try and determine what it was.
The woman and two other important men turned to look at what their lesser colleague was talking about, but when they saw it their jaws dropped and they quickly shouted at everyone else to run for cover. But it was too late, a barrage of projectiles arrived from the open doorway and killed the four gang members along with their second in commands that were seated on the opposite side of the table. As those four fell to the floor the remaining five leaders plus their second in commands pushed the table over to act as a defensive wall.
For nearly a whole minute everything went silent and the remaining gang members readied whatever weapons they had at their disposal, it mostly consisted of daggers and other short bladed weapons but the one with the deep voice Kelile still had his two talismans with him. As such he chuckled as he took them from his pockets and held them in his hands.
“Wait!” Pius the elegant man whispered. “What spells do those cast!?”
“This one casts a shield.” Kelile raised the disk shaped talisman. “And this one casts a fireball.” Kelile raised a second talisman that was shaped like a stone rod that could be held in the closed fist of a small child.