Dantes awoke for the tenth night in a row holding his hand to his throat, sweat covering his sheets. Sevryn didn’t even wake up this time, she’d grown used to his difficulty sleeping, and he’d told her many times just to get rest herself at this point. He ran a finger gently across her outline and crawled out of bed. Luckily, this time he’d awoken only a little bit before dawn, his exhaustion had made it difficult to awaken from even nightmares.
He coughed, and poured himself a glass of water from the pitcher by his bed. It was getting worse. At first he’d thought his infrequent coughs were just a tickle in his throat, or perhaps a side effect of his new pigeon transformation, but he could tell he was getting sick. He hadn’t been ill a single time since he’d become a druid, and he found the experience incredibly unpleasant. Jacopo was sleeping on his nest of silk and satin that he’d torn from various places in the Vixen. He hadn’t been coughing, but Dantes had noticed he was a bit slower than usual over the last few days. It wouldn’t have been perceptible to anyone other than Dantes. He wasn’t sure if sickness was just something they shared due to their bond, or if perhaps whatever was making one of them sick happened to be affecting both of them.
He walked into his greenhouse audience chamber and extended his senses out across everything. The sickness that had been at the edges of Rendhold, had finally reached its interior. Outside the main gates everyone knew someone who was sick. On the inside, Dantes was starting to see more and more people coughing on the streets. Even Uptown had a number of cases. The Temple of Many Gods had sent out those priests with the gift of healing, and while they were able to lessen people’s suffering, they were unable to cure it. Disease had always been a complicated thing for healers, as they were better with physical injuries, but usually with enough effort, and gold, they could make most ailments disappear.
Dantes had himself attempted to use his abilities to help those within his gang that were ill. He could sense the taint in them and he would reach out to those parts of them that were fighting the taint and bolster them as much as he could. It lessened their suffering, and most importantly, kept them working, but he couldn’t rid them of it. It also affected each race differently. Humans tended to become feverish and gain a cough, orcs and dwarves got horrendous chills that made them shake like leaves, gnomes developed horrible rashes, halfings began leaking in unpleasant ways, Elves could not go far from their toilets, and kobolds scales started to shed improperly, often pulling up healthy scales. Mutts were lucky enough to have awful combinations of all the possibilities of their bloodlines. There hadn’t been many deaths, but some of those that were already ill and infirm or elderly had been taken. He’d been worried at first that his own sickness was the result of the same disease, but he didn’t sense illness within himself or Jacopo in the same way he’d sensed it in others, so believed it was something else.
Dantes sat in his tree throne, trying to feel the taint that was spreading throughout the city. The exterior of the city was still hit the hardest, but he was beginning to feel larger pockets of it developing within. They felt tangible in an odd way, as if he could reach out and physically touch them. The largest of the pockets was, oddly enough, in the docks. He would’ve expected it closer to the gates, especially since there were so few ships in the dock lately, for fear of the disease as well as over the growing diplomatic problems the city was suffering. He’d need to investigate those thicker pockets of taint. They weren’t natural, Traizen had explained to him that diseases came and went through all locus’s as a natural part of the cycle of life, but this one felt like an an act of imbalance rather than balance. Sickness happened, but the way this one was developing didn’t feel right to him and he still suspected Serpica or another's interference.
The door to the audience chamber opened and Zak stepped through, he looked surprised when he saw Dantes there so early.
“Good morning, Zak.”
“Morning, boss.”
“Were you looking for me?”
He nodded, “Tak is looking for you, he doesn’t look well.”
Dantes nodded and sat up. He wasn’t wearing much in the way of clothes, but at this point there weren’t many at the Vixen who hadn’t seen him fully naked. He walked down the steps into the main floor where Zilly and her staff were just starting to set up for the day.
Tak was sitting in a chair, his black scales partially peeling from his face over his eye. He was eating some fish that Dantes guessed Zilly had heated for him from the previous night's food.
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“Tak, how are you?”
“Bad.”
Dantes sat across from him. “Yeah, I probably didn’t need to even ask.” He reached out and placed his hand on Tak’s shoulder. He concentrated, finding where the taint in him was starting to grow, and energized all within him that was fighting against it. It was tiring for him, but he was getting better at it, more focused.
“Is that any better?”
Tak nodded.
“See me sooner next time. Did you get the herbs from Clay and Hema? They help a lot as well.”
“Gave them to my uncle. He’s sicker.”
“Bring him here to me, and get more herbs for yourself. You’ve been a good earner. I need you healthy.”
Tak nodded, eating another forkfull of fish.
“Were you just here for that, or was there something else?”
“Hearing rumblings. Guard isn’t letting anyone who even seems sick in. Think they may seal off all gates entirely soon. Have some ways around that, but if there’s no trade coming in the bottom line will be even more hurt.”
Dantes nodded. “This has been incoming for a while. I wouldn’t be surprised if the docks are sealed off as well soon.” He leaned back in his chair. “Eat your fish, stick around. I have my breakfast meeting with Jayk and Vera soon. We need to adjust some things.”
He patted Tak’s shoulder one more time and began to walk back up the stairs with Zak.
“Have him moved to the back of my booth before the Vixen opens, and when he leaves, escort him out the back. I don’t want anyone associating this place with sickness.”
Zak nodded.
Dantes went upstairs and began going through his usual routine, though he let Jacopo get some extra rest rather than exercise with him. By the time he’d bathed and dressed, he’d formulated a number of plans and sat with Vera, Jayk, and Tak at his table.
“Tak told me that he expects all visitors to be barred from entering the city soon. Between that and the slowing of ships coming into port, we need to make some changes.”
“Even with changes, we are going to take a hit. Smuggling is our main business,” said Jayk.
“That’s true, but with the city halted, everyone will take a hit. I don’t think the illegal gambling Fritz is in charge of is going to be as profitable without sailors coming into the city. No strikes to break or enforcement for Drake when there aren’t any raw materials coming into the city anyway. We just need to make sure we are hit the least, then when things spin back up to normal, we’ll be at the top, because everyone else will have sunk to the bottom.”
“What do you suggest?”
“First off, start cutting the dust more. We may need to make it stretch out longer to keep that profit coming in. Secondly, I want you and Tak to start working on ways to smuggle people in and out of the city once it seals up. Those on the edges who want to avoid the disease, or those who want to leave sealed sections of the city will be very motivated to pay for that service, and I want to be ready to facilitate it. Third, food and medicine. I’m going to get some seeds together that I want you to take to not only the storefronts, but also anyone in midtown who wants them. Encourage them to take up a bit of gardening.”
“Where?” asked Vera. “It’s not as if most of them can plant in concrete?”
“We’ll bring them dirt too if we have to. They can grow stuff on their roofs. Eventually food might be scarce, and medicine already is, I want control of that.”
“And to make sure we don’t go hungry of course,” said Vera.
“Of course Auntie.”
Dantes took a bite of sausage from his plate and took his time chewing it. “That’s all I have so far, was there anything new from the rest of you?”
“Decker is looking a lot better, but I don’t want to push him to work again yet. At least not with wine,” said Vera, her voice concerned.
“He can take a bit more time. See if he wants to help out in the gardens with Clay and Hema. Working in the dirt like that… it can help.”
“I’ll see if he’s interested.”
“Anything else?”
“Some of the girls are starting to show signs of being sick, but I’ve already asked Hema to get us the herbs we need to help treat them.”
“Send them to me as well, I’ll see what I can do.”
“Yes, I’m sure you won’t mind giving them a healing touch.”
“I definitely won’t. If their families are ill as well though, and that goes for any of our men and the people that pay up to us. I want them to come to me and see what we can do for them.”
Vera nodded and excused herself to start clucking at her girls.
“Jayk?”
“I’ve found our guardsmen friend’s dealer. He’s an independent out of the Guild District. A smart choice for a guard trying to keep his habit hidden. I’ll work him first before moving in on the guard.”
Dantes nodded. “Argenta’s already on our side about moving Pacha, but she’s still working on councilman Krant. Take your time with it, I don’t want any mistakes.”
He nodded. “You also wanted any news about Gavain, right?”
“Something new? Did he kill another dragon? Save a princess? Smile at a peasant?”
“He’s been killing slavers in Frasheid.”
Dantes raised his eyebrows. “Really?”
“Yes. The Adventurer’s guild is in deep shit about it. He’s been freeing them pretty indiscriminately. Frasheid’s threatening to cut off all Guild access to them if they don’t rein him in.”
“Wonderful. Another reason for them to hate Rendhold.” He shook his head. “Still, I’m surprised he’s gone that far. I’d heard of him freeing some slaves here and there, but killing slavers is another thing.” He unconsciously rubbed his neck.
“Thanks, Jayk.” He stood up. “I need to check some things out at the docks. Keep an eye on things for me.” He looked at Tak. “Take your time, have some wine and whatever food you like before you leave. Keep your strength up.”
Dantes walked out of the booth and went to collect Jacopo.