The mark claws its way through Casper's body, pressing against this very core of his conscious mind, yearning to be released in the direction of this man. Every fiber of his being told him to kill whoever this was, kill him and be done with it.
Casper let out a breath, slow and steady and forced the thoughts down, forced the mark to leave his aching muscles.
He had made a promise, a promise not to be run from every city, and as much as he wanted to level this entire place he needed to ensure he didn’t ruin this for the others.
Annabelle, Elisayra, Alex, they all needed healing. They needed this city, as it was the best chance they had at fixing their ailments. He needed to remain here in order to liberate the slaves that were bound to arrive. So instead of channeling the mark to snap this man's neck, he inhaled slowly, stood up from the floor, brushed himself off, and leveled his gaze with the man.
If there was anything he had learned this far, it was that open and honest communication often lended itself to the best results. He had not done this the first time, and in turn left him with no mouth. Perhaps the man would be open to him trying again.
“I, apologize for my previous behavior” Casper offers sincerely, emphasizing the point with a formal bow in the high class fashion.
The corner of the man's mouth twitch upwards slightly.
“Perhaps there is something else you can help me with.”
The man doesn’t turn from his book but indicates with a slight nod that he is listening to Casper's words.
“My friend and I are looking to get in with the city's underground markets. We have an interest in specific tools that we need to acquire and we were tasked to come here and retrieve that ring in order to promise us access to the places we need to be.” Casper lays it out for the man, who closes the book and turns to look Casper in the eyes.
“Well of course, that is the entire point of a thieves guild is it not? To steal things without the other person knowing? You’re not a very good thief if your first try is to come waltzing in here and demanding money for an item. The ring isn’t for sale, because you are meant to steal it” the middle aged man laughs.
“Wait…”
“So no, my dear boy, I will not give you the ring, nor access to the thieves guild on the premise that you show next to no discretion, and obviously appear to be lacking up stairs given how flagrantly you openly talked about trying to get into the thieves guild. You are, at best, a liability.”
“You knew the whole time?” Casper gapes.
“You really are lacking upstairs, that is exactly what I just said, or do you simply have a habit of repeating the obvious? Because that too is reason enough not to let you in.”
Casper silently curses himself in his own head.
How the hell could he have failed this so miserably? He really must be hungover still, that or he was as stupid as this mage was saying he was. In hindsight it should have been obvious, or at the very least it was implied, and of course a thief would need to be able to operate under such conditions.
Casper clenched his jaw, and for another second considered just ripping the ring off the mans finger himself, but decided against it as he heard Elisayra speak up.
“Casper! Can we leave now?”
He didn’t want to just leave, not without having completed the task. But then again Casper knew better than to push this. He had already failed, and it wouldn’t do anyone any good to try again. This Mage had already dismissed him and would refuse anything further. He would have to apologize to Elisayra and help her find another way to the thieves guild.
“Yes!” Casper shouts back, and works his way through the compact space to meet his half elf companion near the door.
The two exchange a defeated expression, and exit the smoke filled shop of magical wonder to return to the garbage filled alleyways that smelled all the worse now.
Casper leads Elisayra out and back towards the main strip of roads, leaving the dark and sewage filled corridors for the slightly less dark mud filled thoroughfare.
‘Elisayra, I-”
Casper finds his hands clasped between the palms of Elisayra's as she giggles manically, her eyes wide with a mischievous twinkle and a smile plastered on her cute little face.
“That was perfect! I had no idea you were such a good actor!” Elisayra praises as she begins to jump up and down with little hops.
“Wh… yea…” Casper starts, mostly confused, until Elisayra releases his hands and rummages around her pocket, producing the ring pinched between her hands.
“You are a genius! How did you know that the mage could only focus on targeting one person at a time?” Elisayra asks, placing the ring in Casper's hand.
Casper looks down at the piece of jewelry and works the words in his mouth. “If magic could be cast on multiple targets wouldn’t Nephinae have been doing that? With how well rounded and versatile she is surely it would have come up. Which meant if I got aggressive and threatened violence he would have to spend all his effort focusing on me. The book he was reading was a spellbook, it had all the incantations in it, which is why he never took his eyes from it really. So…”
“That's brilliant! Well the plan worked perfectly! We just need to get back to the half elf and turn in the ring so we can get to the thieves guild!” Elisayra giggles some more and smiles even wider.
If there was anything Casper had learned this far, it was that open and honest communication often lended itself to the best results. However, he also knew that Elisayra didn’t often look this happy, so maintaining a little white lie that also happened to save him the embarrassment of being a total failure to make sure she stayed happy was probably worth it.
Casper followed Elisayra as she moved a lot more casually through the city streets, leading him towards the place she had met with the half elf who tasked her with the job in the first place.
No longer focusing on stealthing around, she did a better job of playing into her role as his slave, which in honesty made Casper profoundly uncomfortable given that he considered her an acquaintance.
Occasionally she would stop to make sure he was behind her, she would keep her head down and avoid direct eye contact, and occasionally fiddle with the collar around her throat.
Casper reminded himself to try and make all of this up to her once they were no longer in a position where they needed to pretend.
Elisayra led them into a small courtyard on the backside of a collection of buildings tucked far and away from the view of the main road. It looked like this was a shared space, used by a blacksmith, a bakery, and a dye shop.
Several laborers lounged about in the fresh air, all entirely unassuming. She approached a collection of old broken crates that were in the process of being repaired, and struck up a conversation with a woman he didn’t even notice on his first pass of the space.
The two conversed for a moment, before eventually Elisayra motioned for Casper to approach.
“Casper, can you give her the ring please?” Elisayra asks.
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“Right, of course.” Casper smiles and produces the item for what looked to be a homeless beggar woman he thought.
The beggar took the ring and examined it closely, and then gave a smile.
“That was the fastest yet, I'm sure the guild would love to meet with you.” She says, and stows the ring into her pockets.
The woman stands and moved several crates, revealing a heavy trap door that she knocks on in a rhythmic patter. After a few seconds the door opens from within, and a pig faced man pokes his head from the shadows and looks around.
“Got two for you.” the beggar says in a voice not at all like the one she spoke in to Casper.
“Send em down.” the pig faced man groans, before disappearing back into the shadows.
“Alright you two, go on.” the beggar motions for both Casper and Elisayra to follow.
Entering the steep set of stairs that lead down, the two of them follow the pig faced man as he descends further and further into the deeper and deeper dark, made even more hard to see as the trap door is slammed shut behind them and once more blocked with crates.
Casper channels the mark just a little to better see the stairs to avoid tripping, and notices as he does so, that the stairs extend down for nearly a full 60 feet before finally ending in a hallway landing.
Reaching the bottom, the pig faced man knocks on the door at the end of the hall in a different rhythmic pattern. A small slit slides open revealing a set of eyes that look at the pig faced man, then to Casper and Elisayra, before its closed.
The sound of several heavy locking mechanisms echo through the space, and then finally the door is opened, allowing light to fill the hall and reveal the space beyond.
Casper didn’t quite know what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t what he saw before him.
A complex cave like network of interconnecting multi layered tunnels carved and weaved their way through the space like the tentacles of some sea creature had burrowed through brown stone.
Lantern light casts long, strange shadows along the lengths of the passages, passages were people roamed and skulked all in various manner of dress, making Casper feel a little silly for having worn such rugged clothing thinking it was required for a rogue.
The layers of tunnel systems seemed as much connected by ramping passages up and down as it did by cut stairs and ladders that rose to higher more open levels of a natural cave system that had since been expanded artificially.
“Stick close to me.” Casper urges, stepping into the space.
Elisayra obeys, and keeps her body nearly pressed to Casper's as they walk through the passages to try and find their way to anyone who looked like they would sell goods.
In their wandering, the managed chaos of it all seemed to unfold before him. Small market stalls were installed into pockets of the cave selling all manner of black market goods. These small pocket stores were then nothing compared to the larger markets that had been set up into the more open spaces of the cavern, all interconnected by either natural or created tunnels supported by wooden structures linking them all together.
Occasionally they would pass other closed doors which seemed to be connected to more stairs that lead to other entrances all around the city.
“This place is massive.” Elisayra says in a low whisper as she scans around yet another smaller market space.
“It's a wonder the city doesn’t collapse for all these tunnels under it.” Casper notes.
Elisayra nods a passive agreement, though her attention is still on the impressive feat of engineering around her, that is until Casper follows the flow of thieves into the single most impressive chamber yet.
The space beyond them opens up and expands into an incredibly large open cavernous space, with a ceiling nearly 40 feet tall, as the ground dips even further down into an almost second coast.
A set of stairs leads down to the ground level of the cavern, where docks have been built over a large underground lake that extends for almost 200 feet or more before it reaches the opposite wall of the cave.
Waterfalls cascade down from the far side, filling the caverns lake with the sound of the crashing water.
What look like large strings of homes are build up along the entire crescent of the cave’s walls, like fungus attached to the inside of a hollow tree stump.
Small ships row towards the direction of the falls, where men dive into the depths of the lake and return with crates and barrels, while others take rope pulley lifts to the top of the falls, and disappear beyond the heavy stones the obscure the origins of the water.
“Is that Szostes?” Elisayra asks, pointing towards a collection of building near the dock section of the space.
Following her finger, Casper spots the familiar figure of the reptilian woman.
“It is, yes. I wonder what she is doing here?” Casper wonders out loud.
Szostes, as if feeling their eyes on her, turns to look at the two with a hit of defensive concern, before returning to the conversation she was having with another man.
“Should we talk to her?” Elisayra asks
“Maybe, I don’t want her to think we are some low life criminals, then again, if it turns out she is the lowlife criminal she might get worried… Maybe it’s best to stay away actually.” Casper rethinks the logic mid sentence.
“Well, it looks like she liked your first idea more.” Elisayra points, as the two watch Szostes begin to approach them from a distance.
“Well, let's not make her walk the full distance at least.” Casper offers, making his way down the series of stairs to the lake level.
There were a good number of low life criminals, Casper noted as he weaved his way across the wooden platforms towards Szostes. While there were a handful of well dressed and groomed individuals it was clear they were the minority in these deeper parts of the thieves cave system.
Most if not everyone present was dirty, wearing old and torn clothes. He could count the number of individuals who still had all their teeth on one hand, and the number of people without any visible scars on no hands at all.
He doubted anyone here, including Szostes would openly fight, however as he got closer to the beast-folk he began to plan for all of the possible “ifs” that might come up should she turn out to be on the wrong side of all this.
As the three of them met under a large wooden balcony, Casper tried to open with a greeting only to be instantly cut off by the sharp hissing tone of the lizard like woman.
“Rathiel is typically a good judge of character, but I see he missed the mark with you.” She spits the words like venom at Casper, who instantly finds himself on the back foot.
Instant hostility it was then…
“You best have a good excuse for me, less you find yourself like the hunter we killed to protect you.”
Elisayra is equally taken back by her words, evidenced by her repositioning behind Casper's leg for protection from the scaled monster.
Gathering himself for a second, Casper raises his hands and straightens himself out, squaring his shoulders to the woman as to not appear to be seen as having been “caught” by her.
“It’s good to see you again too Szostes.” Casper tries to diffuse the anger with a more playful comment, but realizes all too soon it falls on deaf ears.
“You think this is a game? We gave you passage into the city and you used our name to acquire room, to see you are no more than criminal scum is…is!” he voice rises with rage, her eyes narrow to violent slits and the hiss in her voice projects far far more as she presses into Casper's personal space.
“I assure you we are not criminals, we are here because we acquired the ownership documents of a number of high powered slaves that are likely to be brought to the docks here in this city. I wish to liberate them before they can be resold or documented as “new” slaves.” Casper explains, which at the very least seems to buy him a little extra time.
Looking to Elisayra, she too joins in their defense as she pokes her head from behind Casper's legs.
“It’s true! We are also here so I can get more lock picking sets and other tools I need in order to help with freeing them…” Unlike Szostes, Elisayra's voice tapers off in time with the beast-folks attention being directed at her.
Casper rests a hand on the small girls head and allows her to resume hiding behind him as he continues. “I could ask you the same question though, what the purpose of you being here is. Someone so famous in a den of thieves without anyone batting an eye, its at the very least a little suspicious isn’t it?”
Szostes crosses her arms and flicks her tail in annoyance. “Because it is I who helps save the kingdom from certain destruction. Many tools and resources are needed for us. These people may be criminals but they are very much a part of the same kingdom, fool. They have a vested interest in staying alive, which means if I am here, it is to help them stay alive.
“Yet you only threaten us?” Casper presses.
“Yes! Because you used our name. These scum are necessary, we do not have them all arrested because they are still useful to us, but that does not mean we give them our blessing. We gave you our blessing. Were it to turn out you were caught for illicit activities having used the power of our name, do you have any idea how that would hurt us?”
“Well, you’re in luck, because like I said we aren’t criminals.” He lies, his mind returning both Ostlen and the auction house.
He can feel Elisayra's nod from behind him, and watches cautiously as Szostes’s aggressive posture deflates every so slightly.
“If what you say is true, then you would not refuse my involvement in the matter,” Szostes tests.
“Of course we wouldn’t mind, in fact If you didn’t offer I was going to ask directly.” Casper explains. “We don’t know what we are doing and are honestly walking around blind. Any help you could offer to ensure we get these slaves free would be a huge boon.”
The beastfolk lets out a long hiss and turns, swiping her tail inches from Casper's face.
“Good, I cannot do all of the work for you, freeing slaves within the guild would be seen as bad faith for us. So that specifically I cannot do with you, but I may aid in other more discrete ways.”
“You can’t free slaves from the guild?” Casper asks cautiously.
“No, the thieves guild relies on the slave trade in partnership with with other scum. This is one of the largest reasons the guild is profitable. So long as the guild is profitable we can use it, and so long as we can use it we can help the kingdom.”
Casper frowns slightly at that, and though he tries to press the issue, Elisayra taps his leg and shakes her head, reminding him it wasn’t a good idea to get into a fight with her, not here at least.
“So, what can you help us with, specifically?” Casper asks.
“I can show you what I would do.” Szostes smiles.