On either side of the entrance to the market stood dwarven guards, members of the smallfolk consortium, known by anyone outside it as the smallfuck consortium. They ran the undermarket, and the gang was made up of halflings, gnomes, and the smattering of kobolds and dwarves that had either joined willingly for the perks or been hired on as muscle. Initially he expected the smaller races to be at a distinct disadvantage in the Underprison, but there were a lot of benefits to being small in a series of enclosed spaces. There were entire sections of the prison only they could access. Perfect for storing goods, or even finding what little scavenging could be had in the old tunnels.
The guards ignored them as they came through. They’d both been there before, and while they may try to extort some kind of entrance fee from Tel had he been alone, they sensed that it wouldn’t be worth the trouble with Dantes. The odd pair walked to the edge of the market proper. The market had been built in the highest and widest part of the Pit aside from the maw itself. The buildings and booths were assembled from scraps of wood, cloth, and whatever else prisoners could scrape together. Those merchants that couldn’t afford to build a storefront would lay down cloth and scatter their goods on it, or even just sell it from their person. Dantes took a deep breath and soaked it all in. The undermarket was the closest thing to his home on the surface that he’d had. A den of vice and sin full of possibility. His home, that is, the undermarket itself’s possibilities were thoroughly limited by the fact that it was inside of an understocked underground prison.
Dantes ignored a man selling crude shivs, and another that was dealing dust, though he felt the same pang he always did when he received the offer. Too expensive a habit to maintain in the Pit though. Back up top he’d do a line or two to pass the time or to add to his excitement for the next job. He’d spent a hard few weeks quitting when he’d first arrived, the risk that surrounded it was much higher in the Pit.
Tel paused to gaze longingly at the bar in which a fight had just broken out. The powerful smell of hooch radiating from it with a enough stench to burn the hairs out of his nostrils.
“Did you want booze, or company?” Dantes asked, placing a hand on his shoulder. “I don’t think you’d need my help with the booze, and I’m here for a reason.”
Tel shook his head. “Sorry, I forgot how much I missed a strong drink at the tavern. I never considered it would be something I’d lack easy access to.”
“Booze is easier to come by than a lot of vices down here at least. I know a kobold with a hidden still that has good rates. I’ll introduce you.”
“Thanks Dantes.”
“No problem.” he had told Mez he’d send anyone interested in a strong drink his way and in return he’d receive a bit of the brew or what they traded. He neglected to mention his near certainty that what Mez brewed could cause blindness in large doses.
They walked through a few more ramshackle alleys to one of the largest buildings in the Pit, Which Wench, the changeling brothel. It was basically a long hallway with rooms separated by thin curtains of cloth, with a few having actual rooms toward the back. At the front was a large orc with a crude club and a human with a series of shivs belted at his waist. Their eyes were both completely white, with no pupils showing. They were nameless. Dantes didn’t know if they were men who had simply been too desperate on a lonely night, or had made a bad gamble, but there were many such under the changelings control. The changelings couldn’t defend themselves, the agreement they made at their sentencing meant they had to follow rules in the pit that kept them from hurting others, or using their abilities to escape. Otherwise, they’d be impossible to keep in the pit. Luckily, they were too fey-blooded to break the agreement, though they’d found clever ways around it where they could.
Between them was a perky young half elf-girl wearing a short skirt and tight shirt. Then she was a well endowed and muscled orcish woman with bedroom eyes. Then she was a human woman wearing the clothing of nobility and a haughty expression. The men who walked by, even on their way to do other business, couldn’t help, but look, and no seller bothered trying to hock their wares there, as no one would’ve bothered turning their gaze in the direction of their goods.
The now gnome woman who almost certainly wouldn’t be able to see her own feet waved at them.
“Two-name, no name, welcome!”
“Hello Syn. Calling me Dantes is fine, I’ve told you as much before.”
She became a tall Elven woman in a sheer robe. “How did you know it was me?”
Dantes shrugged. “Not sure, just a feeling.” That was true, but his feelings were always right when it came to which changeling was which.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Syn smiled, playing with her eye-color. “Are you here to gamble, or are you finally lonely enough to pass the time with us some other way?”
“Neither. Just walking a friend over here to meet you.”
Syn turned her attention to Televor. “Can I have your name?” she asked, as she sauntered over to him and gently stroked down his arm with a single finger.
He shivered at her touch. “I’m-.”
Dantes shot him a glare, he’d thought he was smarter than that.
He saw the expression and caught himself. “You can’t have my name, but you can call me Tel.”
“Ah, a shame, you brought us one who isn’t a fool this time.”
“I wouldn’t say that. He seems to have his moments.”
Syn chuckled. “I’m always in a playful mood when you come to visit Two-name. How about I give your friend a discount.”
“That’s up to him,” said Dantes, pretending that wasn’t exactly what he was there for.
“Y-yes please. I’d like that very much.”
Syn looked Tel over, her eyes turning violet, then blue, while her teeth switched between fanged and tusked. “A nervous boy, eh, I’ll prepare something special for you. I’ll be in the last room on the left. Give me just a moment.”
They watched her walk away, Dantes getting a little flicker of what she actually looked like. Pure white skin, too long limbs ending in clawed hands, and black hair down the back. He was grateful he hadn’t seen her pure black eyes at least. Those flickers had happened randomly since the first time he’d seen one of them. They made it quite a bit easier for him to resist their temptations, though after five years without a woman’s touch it still hadn’t been easy.
“Why do they call you two-name, no-name?”
“My mother named me one thing, and my father another. I have two names, but no ‘true’ name. Means they can’t own me. Also means I can gamble with them safely, which they appreciate. Apparently it gets tiresome when the stakes are always someone’s first born, their name, or other fey shit like that.”
“Interesting. My studies were always into daemons rather than the fey.”
“That explains your penchant for alcohol and whoring. Also why you almost let yourself become an eternal slave at the touch of a woman.”
Tel blushed a bit. “I just… the other Collared aren’t exactly pretty to look at. I’d never met changelings before, I had expected it to be more obvious that they weren’t what they were pretending to be. It took me off guard.”
“How would you know you’ve never met one before?”
“Ah… fair point.”
“It’s not like they’re men dressed as women. They’re neither. That’s why the city just sends half here, and half to the convent.”
Tel went to respond, but a high female voice with a slight lilt drifted from the furthest room of the brothel. “TeeeEeel. Come innnn.”
Tel coughed and ran a hand through his mop of hair. “How do I look?”
Dantes sighed. “Syn’s a whore Tel, It doesn’t matter how you look.”
“Oh, right. Wish me luck?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Ah well. Meet here later for the trek back?”
“Sure.” Though Dantes expected him to be waiting for him for quite some time after he was done.
Tel nodded and headed for the far room. Dantes saw a slender woman’s hand reach out and drag him inside.
Dantes shook his head, and started walking through the market. He’d done well on securing food for the month, but food wasn’t everything. Dantes looked through the goods of a gnome selling the clothes of dead men. Another who was selling a nice collection of clubs fashioned with stone at the ends for a bit of additional umph, one selling hand woven lengths of rope, and finally he came to a dwarven booth that smelled of vegetation which he found himself drawn to.
The dwarf was wearing a dirt brown tunic, though it may have been white once. He had mushrooms growing from parts of his dark black beard, and a thin pipe from which the scent of dwarven weed wafted. He was engaged with a different customer when Dantes approached the booth, but gave him a nod. The gesture was to both acknowledge his presence, and let him know that he was watching him if anything went missing.
The wares he was selling were primarily plants. He had crude pots filled with dirt on each available surface and from each of them grew stems, vines, shrubs, and all manner of other items. Dantes had thought himself lucky for the few patches of moss he was able to keep alive in his cave, but this dwarf had managed far more, and somehow Dantes had never even noticed him before.
He took a deep inhale of the leaves of one of the plants, the scent of green and earth filling his nostrils. For a moment he was in the gardens in the center of the city, and walking the overgrown alleys that had been near his childhood home, and climbing the vines he used to scale up to rooftops in the most dilapidated districts looking for food or to escape some moron he’d pickpocketed. He let out a long sigh.
“Smelling is free, but if you want something to smoke we’ll have to deal.”