The first mile or so that Dantes walked was nothing but empty alleyways filled with trash and rats. Even with the mile of space between the Maw and the wall that sealed the space off, people still preferred to live as far from it as possible. Dantes couldn’t blame them, he hadn’t particularly wanted to live as close to it as he had either. He saw only vermin as he walked those first steps in the city, and he exchanged cursory hellos with them as he went, much to their surprise. Eventually, he began to run into the occasional homeless man sleeping off a hangover, or the sounds of someone living in an abandoned building, and in one case the corpse of a man who had taken too much dust and died with a wide grin on his face. After that, he started to hear the city proper, and could see signs of life throughsmall cracks in alleyways.

Dantes walked calmly toward the sounds of people, rickshaws, carriages, and commerce. He relished the noise of his boots on concrete echoing down the alleys as he moved. Before he entered the main road he looked at his outfit. While it had been coated in blood, now there was a nice thick layer of dirt and grime making it impossible to tell what was staining him, which saved him the trouble of needing to stick to the alleys. The sun was beginning to fade, and he cast a long shadow as he stepped out onto a main road, pulling up his hood, and falling in line with the rest of the crowd as he gradually made his way down the street.

He took stock of where he was as he calmly walked among the crowd. None of them had any clue he was a convict, and while people seemed animated it seemed mostly to be due to the end of the day causing a rush of people out of businesses and a few last ditch efforts at commerce from those businesses before everyone made their way home. Everyone was dressed in clean, but well worn to nice clothing with a few standouts here and there. The businesses were mostly cobblers, tailors, and the street was long and narrow. He realized he was on the worse end of Needle street, where the average citizen of Rendhold could get their clothing repaired, or in very rare instances, made for a special occasion. The buildings there were low and clustered tightly together with only a few small slum towers scattered here and there behind them.

He could reach midtown relatively quickly from Needle street, but after hearing that it was under the control of Mondego, he wasn’t sure that would be wise. There was a chance no one would recognize him, it had been five years and he knew well that he no longer looked as he once did. Still, he wasn’t about to start taking such heavy risks so soon after his escape.

“I’m telling you. I can see it from my apartment! A huge fucking tree just sprouted out of nowhere.”

“Sure, Dan. How about you go back to that apartment and sleep it off, okay buddy?”

The man, Dan Dantes presumed, fumed. “I’m telling you, I know what I saw! Why do you think we saw all those guardsmen rushing that way earlier!?”

“Because some asshole accidentally scuffed a nobles boots. Or a shop didn’t pay protection money. Who gives a shit?”

Dantes kept walking. It would take some time for news of what had happened to travel, but the tree would be a hard thing to hide. Still, it wouldn’t be smart for him to stay out on the streets as he was.

Outside of Midtown, he had few contacts, and of those he had even fewer that he trusted. He could simply find a room somewhere, pay for it, and settle in for the night and get his information slowly over time using Jacopo and whatever other vermin he could muster. That wouldn’t do though, not for his first night free. He wanted information, contacts, and one other thing that the one person he’d consider trustworthy could provide.

He made his way further down the length of Needle street until he reached the worst part of it, where a few stalls sold clothes still soiled with gravedirt, and beggars began to outnumber working folk. He stopped at one of the obvious gravedigger’s stalls, and haggled for a fresh pair of pants and shirt for a copper a piece. It wasn’t the first time he’d worn a dead man’s clothes, though if he was lucky it might be the last. He shoved the clothes in his pack for later and from there he twisted down a few alleyways and began following the smell of salt and moisture. After twenty or so minutes of walking, he reached the edges of the docks. The sun had fully set at this point, and Dantes could see the groups of academy students escorted by guards as they went from lamppost to lamppost, lighting each of them with a bit of spellfire.

Dantes passed them by, keeping his hood drawn and moving down a few more side streets. It was strange, seeing magic being done so casually, he’d grown unused to that in the Underprison. He was too tired to put much thought into it. The elation of his escape had given him the second wind he’d needed to make it to this point, but he was flagging, and his feet screamed at him from within his boots.

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He exited one more alley and looked to his right. There, as if nothing had happened in the last five years, sat the Vivacious Vixen. The building was old, perhaps as old as the docks, and as far as Dantes knew it had always been a brothel, though it had many names before settling on its current one. The wooden sign was only a little worse for wear, with the sultry buxom fox-headed woman now missing the tip of one of her ears.

Dantes walked up to the front door, and pushed it open. His nose was struck by the smell of perfume and wine, and before his eyes could fully adjust to the well lit interior, a feminine voice, haughty and with a touch of cruelty spoke to him.

“You’ll have to leave, I doubt you can afford the services here.”

Dantes pushed his hood back, running a hand through his hair to push it back out of his face. The girl who’d addressed him was leaning against a doorway, wearing a dark pink corset and short frilly black skirt that concealed burgundy leggings beneath. She was human, young maybe seventeen or nineteen, with black hair falling in waves over her shoulders, brown eyes, and a furrowed brow.

He realized he was staring. It had been some time since he’d spoken to a woman whose form didn’t flicker into a pale skinned black eyed fae, and even though the girl wasn’t his type, five years was a long time.

“Hey Decker, may need some help with this one.”

A large Orc stepped into the center of the doorway behind her.

Dantes held up his hands. “Sorry, don’t want any trouble. I’m looking for an old friend. Her name is Vera? She used to work here.”

The girl raised an eyebrow. “The Madam? I can’t see how she would know someone like you.”

She’d gotten a promotion since Dantes had last seen her, good for her. “How about you tell her I’m here and maybe you can ask her.”

The bouncer and her exchanged a glance that indicated to Dantes they were leaning strongly toward just throwing him out. He could probably take Decker, his dagger was dull, but they clearly thought he was just some urchin, which meant that he’d underestimate him. Dantes didn’t want to fight though, Decker and the girl were really just doing their jobs, and quite well.

“Listen, you have a bar right? I’ll buy a drink, and one for Decker here if he wants it, and he can keep an eye on me while you tell her that Ed is here. How about that?”

Decker looked at the girl with a kind of ocular shrug, he clearly wouldn’t mind a drink.

The girl sighed. “Fine. Wait at the bar, Vera’s working the books so I doubt she’ll want to talk to you even if she does know you.”

Decker moved to the side, keeping an eye on Dantes as he moved to the bar. The interior of the place hadn’t changed aside from maybe some new upholstery on the couches and the brothel’s inhabitants. The bar was a long piece of dark wood. There were curtains in shades of purple, pink, and light blue hung all over the walls hiding the aging wood walls behind them, and girls laid on heavily padded couches in various states of undress. He recognized none of them, but that was the nature of their business. Five years was more than enough time for a lot of turnaround, he was just glad that Vera was still there.

Dantes sat at the bar, and gestured toward a wine at the middle shelf. The half-elf woman bartending was wearing a thick cotton shirt, and dark brown trousers in sharp contrast to the other women in the bar. She nodded, and quietly poured him a glass. She had enough professionalism to make no comments on Dantes’ appearance. In appreciation of that, Dantes himself did his best to not stare at how well she filled out her shirt and trousers, which for a man who went from seeing only men to being in a brothel, took more self control than he’d care to admit. He pulled a few copper from a pocket and slid it over to the woman, who nodded.

“So, Decker, what’ll it be for you?”

He raised a hand to his chin, scratching it thoughtfully. He was a big orc, not Blud big, but certainly the proper size to be a bouncer at a whorehouse. His tusks were capped with decorative silver, and his hair was braided with jewelry that reminded Dantes a bit of Stonedust Clans beards.

“Hmmm, I’ll have a dry white today. A fresh bottle, pour it in a wide glass so that it can breathe.” He pointed a thumb at Dantes. “This one is paying.”

The Elf sighed, reached up a bit above the middle shelf, pulled a corkscrew out and popped it, then she pulled out a wide brimmed glass and poured it in, giving it a delicate twirl as she did so. “Here you are, your highness,” she delivered the line without a hint of humor, which made it that much more amusing.

Decker smiled, “Thank you much.”

Dantes was sliding six copper her way before she even told him the prices.

She raised an eyebrow, but didn’t question the convenience of it, and slid the coins toward her side of the bar.

Dantes sipped his wine in silence. The flavor was good, and the wine was strong, but strangely enough he remembered it tasting better than it did. Either the quality of wine had changed since he was in prison, or Mez really was a master brewer.

Dantes heard footsteps coming from the stairs, and saw first the young woman who’d ‘greeted’ him, and behind her someone else. She was an elegant five foot ten, wearing a plain emerald green gown, a silver necklace, and bangles shaped like foxes on each wrist. Her hair was auburn, with a few new streaks of white, and her face was still beautiful, even with a few new wrinkles.

Her eyes were wide with surprise and her mouth widened into a smile as she saw him.

Dantes smiled back. “Hello Auntie, it’s been a while.”