Bart sighed to himself, grumbling slightly under his breath. While his change into a shapeshifter had been quite the boon to the detective group, it had turned him into more of an actor than a wizard. Still, he had taken to it with as much ambition as he had done with his spell-casting. He preferred his default wizard state, where he could be his true self. When he fell into a role, he became it.
Now as Kurt, he rolled his shoulders out, approaching the village from the road. Fingers through his slick black hair, he narrowed his eyes at the old man in the rocking chair.
“Another hellspawn from the outside!” the seated figure cackled.
Bart gave him a rude hand gesture and turned to walk toward the town meeting area… which was now populated again. He worked his jaw and grunted as he got closer.
Same two figures up on the stage, the mass of people sitting in silence. Instead of interrupting, he stood near the back with his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket.
The eyes of the man on stage fell on him. “Hello? Can we help you?”
“Doubt it,” Bart said, with a shrug.
“We’re in the middle of a town meeting here,” the woman with fire-red hair added, a scowl across her face.
Bart yawned. “Good for you.” Inwardly, he was rather concerned about proceedings, but he was willing to see where things led.
He winced as a loud crash came from the back of the town.
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“That was rather loud, ser Grugg.” Gregor flicked his tail in the air as his arms were crossed.
Several planks of wood clattered down amongst the small cloud of debris, as the cyclops righted himself. He turned back to the ratman, his blue eye burning brightly through the dust.
“Yes,” he replied.
Gregor rolled his eyes. “Well, before the cannibals come ask what we’re up to destroying their building, see if there are any clues.”
With a grunt, the detective tapped Thud to the floor to activate the Moonchaser Orb. White light flooded the darkened interior of the supposed storeroom.
“There is big floor hatch,” Grugg noted, pointing a stubby finger at the highlighted space in the center. “But something even worse…” he turned slowly to his Deputy, his singular eye widening even further.
A scowl sunk into the ratman’s face. “What’s that then?”
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“Probably just your imagination?” Bart rolled his eyes. “I didn’t hear anything.”
The man atop the stage clenched his teeth together. “I’m pretty sure I trust my own ears more than yours, stranger.”
With a cluck of his tongue, the wizard slowly shook his head and started walking closer. “See, I figured the message wasn’t clear enough. That’s why they sent me.”
Unnervingly, the seated members of the audience hadn’t really made a move to acknowledge him whatsoever. The pair on the stage narrowed their eyes further and gave each other a glance before looking back at the disguised wizard.
“Who was it that sent you?” The man didn’t seem too convinced.
Bart tutted and rolled his eyes. “You really need to ask?”
“Alright!” The woman took over and gestured off to one of the side houses. “Let’s go talk somewhere more private then, shall we?”
Internally, the wizard was slightly panicked, but kept his overconfident poker face up. Walking off to the side as the woman stepped down from the stage, he looked over to the building she had gestured toward with a raised eyebrow.
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“Looks creepy,” Grugg surmised, as they stood and looked at the hatch in the floor.
I turned out that the storeroom wasn’t filled with any food at all. Which was both disappointing and curious for the Detective. Mostly the former, if he was honest. Indeed, it didn’t look as though it had been properly used for years. All the boxes and decrepit crates around the room were dusty and falling apart. Anything that could rot away had long put the effort into doing so, and only dark sludge remained.
The hatch, however, was something different. It looked newer than most of the wood by a good decade at the least. Not only that, but it was wider than any hatch Grugg had seen before, and almost circular in design. To say that he would have no trouble fitting down it went without saying, as it was easily wide enough to fit a…
Stolen story; please report.
He raised his eyebrow and looked at the Deputy. “Think stagecoach go down here?”
Gregor tilted his head from side to side. “There were no obvious tracks outside, ser Grugg. In this mud, it would be hard to obscure that kind of thing.”
“Hard,” Grugg nodded, “but not impossible.”
The ratman shrugged and went to lean against one of the tables. “Are we waiting for ser Hat to find us, or are we investigating now?”
The cyclops rubbed at his head. While it was better for the three of them to stick together, especially if they were going somewhere possibly dangerous and underground, there was no way of knowing what he was up to. Grugg was keen not to give away Bart’s cover, and the villagers weren’t likely to be too friendly if they started looking around for the wizard. Not after destroying half of this building and uncovering secrets.
“Will investigate now,” he decided. “Bart can send Grugg a message if in trouble.”
Gregor nodded, accepting this plan. Although his preference seemed to be going down the hatch and leaving the wizard behind, his face still held a scowl. “After you then, ser Grugg.”
With a nod, the cyclops stepped back and dug his fingers into the handles of the hatch. Given the size, it didn’t seem like something a normal human could lift with any ease - certainly not the ghostly-looking villagers. Then again, maybe they were really strong from lifting all the cannon balls. Grugg couldn’t judge.
The ratman kept his red eyes on the rough opening they had made in the wall. While he wasn’t looking to waste one of his bullets, people didn’t like breaking and entering, and while Grugg seemed happy and affable enough most days, he was still an imposing figure. Plus, Peony would twist his ears off if he was the one to start murdering the villagers for no reason.
Grugg grunted as the hatch lifted up on complaining hinges. He pushed it up and back, the near twenty-feet diameter of it blocking out a lot of the back wall. A wave of stale air washed up into the building as a darkened tunnel revealed itself. Dropping into the earth at a steep angle, the floor was a rough gray stone, while the walls were brickwork. Reasonably old, but not as aged as most of the village.
He crouched down and tried to peer further into the darkness. “Goes down long way,” he eventually muttered.
Gregor stood up beside him and sighed. “Did you bring a torch, ser Grugg?”
The cyclops nodded. “Always bring one in adventuring kit.”
“And where is your adventuring kit, ser Grugg?”
He patted against his belt, or rather, the empty space where the kit should be affixed. But wasn’t. Grugg gave the ratman a wide, sheepish smile.
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The woman, who eventually introduced herself as Lauren, didn’t seem to be in good humor and hadn't returned his affable smile. Anything beyond a scowl or judging look toward him was way out of her wheelhouse, despite his attempts to seem friendly enough. In a way, she reminded him of Gregor.
“We were starting to wonder when one of you was gonna show your face here.” She crossed her arms and leaned back in the wooden chair.
Inside the house he had been led to, Bart was no less uncomfortable. The decor was plain and dreary, not having seen a good clean or perhaps even proper use for a while. Definitely not a regularly used meeting room, or even somewhere where he expected someone to live.
Briefly, he wondered if he had been brought in here to be killed off or imprisoned… but there were no guards or other villagers around them.
He shrugged. “Yeah, well. The guy they were going to send got a little too dead to do the job.”
Lauren worked her jaw. She didn’t seem to fully buy who he was purporting to be, but then, neither did he. For the wizard, the social manipulation and faux confidence had been almost a spell of its own for him to learn. Many people just wanted to feel a certain emotion, and they’d unlock like a door. Sometimes, just knowing their place in a conversation was enough to suspend their disbelief over other things.
Of course, usually he’d have completed enough case work and gathered investigative information to know who he was and what to say to whom. Going full on, the improvisation was taxing at best. Deadly at worst.
“Seems your group has had that trouble as of late.” There was a prodding edge to her statement.
Bart gave her a sly grin. An organization had been established. One that had recent losses. Too soon to jump to conclusions - but there was a thread there that he could taste. Then again, she might be trying to test him, a little ploy of her own.
“The tide goes in and out,” he said, tilting his head. “But the ocean yet remains.”
A brief smile went across the woman’s face. “They don’t usually send someone good with words.” Her eyes lingered across him for a moment before any notion of further compliments faded away. “Should have gotten here sooner, though. There’s a group of misfit detectives snooping around.”
“Detectives?” Bart pulled a face. “What do they look like?”
“Like they need to be taken care of.” She rolled her eyes. “No point paying protection money if you’re gonna let any old eccentrics walk into the village.”
“Sure, sure.” Bart shuffled in his chair. “But actual descriptions would be nice.”
“Of course,” Lauren pulled a face, perhaps resisting giving an apology. “One of them you can’t miss. Cyclops. Shifty looking mole-man. Then some hairy skeleton in a wizard’s outfit.”
Any brief humor Bart may have had over Gregor being called a mole-man was soon washed away by the insinuation that he looked like a skeleton in costume. Maybe having her as a shapeshift form would be quite useful.
No, that was a dangerous path to start treading, and he wasn’t eager to start now.
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“It's fine,” Gregor shrugged. “But you just have to be careful of your footing.” His tail waved in the air as he watched the cyclops take a couple of shaky steps into the mouth of the tunnel.
Grugg wavered again and grimaced down into the darkness. His deputy had the foresight to bring his own pair of torches, which was useful. That didn’t really help with his depth-perception, making this angled passageway look even worse to walk down than it truly was.
They had considered throwing a torch down to see how far it went, but they didn’t want to disturb anything that may lie at the bottom.
Which, according to the ratman, could be anything between a monster, settled flammable gasses, or another horde of cannon balls.
Grugg didn’t fancy his chances with any of those, mostly because he was hungry.
“Think Peony owes us big feast after,” he murmured to himself, as he took a couple more steps into the depths.