Dantes walked back to his cave, his mind forming plans on top of plans on top of plans in the midst of the euphoria he was experiencing. The immediate threat was gone, and now he had more tools to work with than he’d ever had before. He felt like he’d just done a fat line of dust. He didn’t just need to survive and wallow, he could build, maybe even find a way out of the Pit.
It had happened before. There was Tristan two lives, a mage that had managed to remove his collar by killing himself so that it could be removed, then being revived. The Green Blight, an Orc that had earned his freedom by volunteering to fight in the Arena and surviving a gauntlet that no one else has managed to complete before or after him. Gideon Gallant, a gnome who’d managed to find a way out of the Pit by traveling through the Ruins and finding an exit on the outside of Rendhold. Those, of course, were the major examples, the legends. Between those legends he was certain there were dozens more escapes that no one had ever heard of. People who had friends on the surface that could bust them out, who bribed the right guards during their occasional raids, or even exceptional climbers that managed to slip out of the Maw in the dead of night and get past the guards.
Dantes was more interested in those more mundane methods. He had only just avoided execution, he wasn’t nearly a solid enough fighter to survive the challenge of the arena, and having seen some of the things that lived in the dark further in the ruins, he had no desire to go that route. Besides which, since those escapes, magical barriers had been erected that blocked off the deepest portions of the Underprison that might lead to the surface.
First things first though, he’d need to gather resources. The blow he just made to the Elfland Kings gave him a reputation to trade on, but also one to repair. The Consortium would be very upset with the chaos he’d created in their market, so his first step would be to mend his relationship with them. There was no path forward without at least their indifference secured. Not to mention they were the group most likely to know of other methods of escape.
Dantes made it back to his cave, needing to adjust his new rapier to allow himself through the narrow opening.
Jacopo leapt from Dantes’ jacket and moved toward his usual spot on the ground, curling up for a nap. Dantes spent another hour pacing, moving up and down the length of his cave, tracing a crack that spanned its length with his middle finger as he thought through plans and possibilities. He was physically exhausted, bruised, battered, but his mind and soul were alight in a way they hadn’t been for the previous five years.
He made his way out of his cave to check on his orchard, and found that everything had grown even more in his absence, and the garden itself was spreading out from the initial areas in which he’d planted the seeds. Those seeds left behind by the rats he’d fed had somehow found purchase in the cracks widened by the growing roots of the trees, vines, and bushes, many of which were already sprouting with delicate red leaves. Dantes reached out his attention to check on them, and was unsurprised to find them thriving, but hungering for more of his blood. He obliged them, simply opening a scab on his arm from a cut he’d earned from Reivare’s rapier mere hours ago. He squeezed out several drops of blood for each plant.
Once he was done he sat on a raised piece of stone and checked his ratmark. There was only the tiniest sliver of gold left on the fang. He’d expected as much, and was grateful it had lasted as long as it had. If he’d needed to fight for too much longer, he’d have lost the rat’s support and Reivare would’ve almost certainly run him through. He’d need to start building up their favor again. He needed the majority of the fruit his garden would produce for a different plan, but he’d put aside maybe a tenth of the rest for the rats, on top of whatever spoiled beyond his purposes. That would help to build it up in the long term, but he’d need to find more ways to give it a quicker boost. If he was back up in Rendhold he could just go to some of the larger gangs and offer to get rid of any sensitive corpses they had and then feed those bodies to the rats. A good idea, and one he’d save for later, but not one that could help him at the moment.
He stood up and went back to his cave from the garden. He watered the plants there, which were slowly growing to cover the floor in soft green moss, then fed the fungus in the far corner of the cave as well. Once he was done with that, his mind finally began to calm. Whether it was from the completion of more mundane and soothing tasks, the natural depletion of adrenaline after the events in the undermarket, or the blood loss he wasn’t sure.
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He yawned, wiping a tear of exhaustion from the corner of his eye. The last thing he did was find some large canvas sacks he’d kept in a corner and set them out for the morning. After that he placed his new rapier at the side of his makeshift bed, and laid down. Sleep came quickly after that.
…
He had expected his long day to lead him to an empty, dreamless sleep, but had no such luck. He found himself floating above a large and familiar table, in the center of which was a scale. On one side of the table sat the man in the midnight blue cloak, and on the other side sat the woman in green with a predator’s smile. They were discussing something, but the actual content of their words were muffled and incomprehensible to him, as words in dreams often were.
Things seemed to have advanced at the table since the last time he’d been there. The woman in green no longer sat alone, but instead had, curled on the table next to her, a large gray rat which she occasionally scratched between the ears. The scale on the center of the table seemed to be balancing far more coins than it had been as well, and on the table between them were three coins that both the green woman and the blue man gestured to as they spoke, as if discussing where they should be placed. The blue man was also no longer alone. Another man was leaned over behind him, this one wearing a rich black cloak, threaded with fine gold lace. The man seemed identical to the man in blue, except for his smile. Unlike the wry bemusement in the smirk of the man in blue, the man in black’s smile was hungry, and cruel.
Both the man in blue and the woman in green reached for a coin in the center, and placed it on their respective sides of the scale. They then both reached for the third, and grabbed hold of it at the same time.
…
Dantes woke to soreness all across his body and a pounding headache. He sat up, and dragged himself over to his water pitcher drinking until it was half empty. The water made him realize how hungry he was, and so he removed the rock from over his food store and had a swift breakfast of what little dried meat remained as well as some hard crackers he mixed with water to make them soft enough to be edible. The food and drink lessened the headache, in all the excitement of the previous day he'd forgotten to eat. He tossed a bit of cracker and meat to Jacopo, who actually caught some of it between his teeth, seemingly ready for it before he even initiated the throw.
He waited patiently for Jacopo to have his meal. Dantes could sense that Jacopo felt much the same as he did from the activities of the previous day, and considering they seemed to share in what suffering they experienced he saw no reason to rush him and cause himself discomfort in the process.
Once Jacopo was done Dantes collected the sacks he’d laid out the previous day, buckled his new rapier to his waist, and made his way to the garden. It had grown lush, and rich in the time he’d slept, spreading further and producing new fruit as thanks for the blood he'd shed for it the previous day. He began collecting all of the fruit that he could. Filling one sack, then another, then a third. By the end he had filled all five that he had brought. He knew he could carry only one through the outer tunnels, but that should be all he needed to get things started, and having the rest put away would save him trouble later.
He looked up at the trees that still had fruit, and down at the vines. He reached out with his senses and felt the rats scurrying in the nearby tunnels.
Come and eat all you’d like. Just leave the sacks undisturbed.
It wasn’t even five seconds before several dozen rats scurried into the garden and began eating to their heart’s content. Dantes watched his ratmark as gold began to slowly spread back across the first fang.
Satisfied, he grabbed one of the sacks of fruit, pulling only a single apple from it to eat as he walked, and began heading into the outskirts of the pit. It had been a while since he’d seen Mez, and he had a wonderful new business opportunity for him.