“Told you so,” Naia said as soon as the door to the office closed behind them.

“Your ability to restrain your childish glee in a grownup manner is a true marvel to behold,” Aran told her.

“Just admit I’m amazing, and I’ll let it go,” she said.

“I will admit that as soon as it turns out we were in fact qualified for the job and we get paid.”

“Right, so in three days, you say. In three days, you will admit I’m amazing!”

“Where did the three days come from?” Shale interrupted.

“From the bet we are making,” Naia replied. “I say we are done in three days. I’m putting twenty gost and a bottle of fine Arabeskian arbit on it.”

Aran made an involuntary disgusted sound.

“I will drink the arbit myself if you win, then!” Naia continued. “Everyone likes arbit, what’s wrong with you!”

“Nobody in Arabesk drinks that, they just sell it to the tourists,” Aran stated.

Naia laughed. “How the Hells would you know?”

“…Because I’m from Arabesk,” Aran said, puzzled she didn’t know, but not sure if he had actually ever told anyone. Why not, he wondered. It wasn’t a particularly private fact.

“…Really?” Shale asked and opened a door as they made their way towards the basement. They had followed Sef's instructions, but were now back at the indoor market, stretching the length of the block, seemingly with a bridge closing a gap between two houses in the middle. “Right… How did we…”

“I think I know where it went wrong,” Ailmon commented and led them back the way they’d come.

“I thought humans from Arabesk tended to be dark skinned…” Shale said.

“Same!” Naia said. “If you didn’t have a tan, I would have guessed you were a ghost with that white hair. Even your eyes are pale with white on them.”

Aran closed his pale-with-white-on-them eyes for a moment and shook his head. “Well, I am from there. And yes, a lot of humans from Arabesk are dark-skinned and have dark eyes. And they all hurry up to sell their arbit to anyone who will take it away from the City of the Five Academies.”

“Tell me something only someone from Arabesk would know!” Naia demanded playfully.

“You will per definition not know if it’s true, will you? I can tell you anything I want.”

“Perhaps we should focus on preparing for the meeting with the corpse, when we get there?” Ailmon interjected calmly.

“Spoilsport!” Naia laughed and tried the handle of the unassuming but solid-looking metal door to the basement.

As soon as the door swung open, a wealth of smells assaulted the group. Sweet, rotten, sharp, flowery, pungent with an undertone of blue cheese left in the sun.

“Ooiy!” Shale exclaimed and hid her nose in the crook of her elbow.

Before them stretched a very long and narrow underground room. On either side were desks and worktables with complicated-looking distillery machines, hundreds of bottles, flasks, vials, and jars scattered on every available surface. The people at tables nearest the door looked at them in the glare of the hundreds of lamps and candles illuminating the basement laboratory. Then they shrugged and went back to their work.

“Rosk! This is awful,” Shale commented, muffled by her shirt sleeve.

“Come on, it’s not that bad,” Aran said.

“Says the human with no sense of smell. We’re only one fourth the same species.”

“Well, the corpse is here, somewhere, so we don’t have much of a choice.” Aran walked slowly through the room towards the back, where it opened up in a circular space with many more tables scattered around and fewer people working. The smells were slightly less insistent here.

“Elsbeth! Elsbeth!” came a piercing, nasal shout from somewhere near them and a middle-aged man of the small tribes, roughly the size of a seven-year-old human child, decked out in elaborate robes and a leather apron with multiple pockets holding strange-looking tools, appeared before them. “Elsbeth!” he shouted again, and a harried-looking young woman in a similar robe, brown hair held away from her face with a blue scarf around her head, and balancing a tray of glass bottles, hurried to his side.

“Yes, Doctor Cosmo?” she said, as the small man looked up at the group.

“There are freelancers in my basement! Fetch my ladder!” the small man exclaimed.

“Yes, Doctor Cosmo.” The young woman set the tray down and fetched a step-ladder, placing it near Doctor Cosmo.

The tiny man climbed up and stood so he was at eye height with Shale, who was still slightly bent over, an arm covering her nose.

“Who are you and what are you doing here?” Doctor Cosmo demanded nasally.

“Ehm…” Aran shook himself, ignoring the strange display. “We have taken a job for the guild and need to see the corpse that was brought down here yesterday.”

“Ah, finally! Some of the others are getting the wobbles over him,” Cosmo stated and then shouted, “Elsbeth!” although the woman was standing just next to him. “Show the freelancers where the corpse is. Quickly!”

“Yes, Doctor Cosmo.” She gestured to the group to follow her.

“Thank you kindly,” Ailmon said as they moved past the strange fellow.

Elsbeth led them to the end of the circular room and through a doorway into a small chamber. On the table in the middle of the room lay a sheet-covered corpse.

“The belongings he had with him are on the shelf here,” Elsbeth said, indicating a small wooden tray holding a few items. “Please let me know if you need anything.”

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“I do, actually!” Naia said. “Don’t let that little crud-bugger bully you around.”

“I… ehm… I…” the woman obviously had no idea how to respond, staring at Naia with huge eyes.

“That was it. I don’t need anything else. You can go.” Naia waved her off and Elsbeth seemed to heave a sigh of relief as she fled the small chamber.

“That was a form of well-meaning insolence I’ve never seen in action before,” Aran nodded.

“Enough talk, we’re working,” Naia dismissed.

“Alright. Let’s see.” Ailmon lifted the sheet off the corpse, revealing an ascetic-looking man, his ribs were clearly visible under the white, waxen skin. His silver-streaked black hair was long, thin, and greasy, and there was a shadow of stubble on his sunken cheeks. The pale eyes were half-open, staring eerily into nothingness. The jaw hung slack, giving them a clear view of the dead man’s blackened teeth.

“Let me just see,” Shale said and fished out the list of the victims again. “Sargon the priest,” she read aloud. “Supplied us with information on high class individuals in Old Town. Stabbed. Found in front of the Guildhouse yesterday morning. Ehh. Corpse in basement… we know,” she muttered. “Then it says to talk to Ibbi Wazzle at the Shindig. He might have seen something.”

“Might have seen something?” Aran asked. “Wouldn’t that Sef-guy know before giving us the job?”

Shale shrugged. “It says he was Wazzle-drunk when it happened. You know how he is.” She grinned. “That guy can hold more liquor than me.”

“You know him?” Ailmon asked. “Well, that will make things easier.”

“Can’t you feel…” Naia said from behind them.

Shale gave Ailmon and Aran a puzzled look. “Of course. He’s the small-triber guy.” She pointed up towards the ceiling and presumably the Shindig above somewhere.

Both Ailmon and Aran just stared blankly at her.

“He waits tables? Aran was talking to him this morning. It was probably Ibbi who stuck my braid in a bottle when I went out cold. He’s somehow able to not die from his massive alcohol intake.”

“Sounds like a fantastic witness!” Aran nodded.

“Let’s worry about that after the corpse, shall we?” Ailmon suggested.

“Alright.” Shale had lowered her arm from her nose and walked around the table, looking at the dead man. “Well, that’s a clean stab wound. Look, straight through.” She pointed to the neck and the other two crowded around to see.

A large wound on one side of the neck gaped dully at them, and on the other side was a smaller exit wound.

“Hm, a knife of about this length?” Ailmon held out his hands, indicating the supposed length of the blade on either side of the corpse’s neck. “Like the ones sailors carry.”

“That narrows things down in the greatest port city in the Life Sea…” Aran said.

“Any kind of thug could carry a long knife. I’m carrying a long knife.” Shale drew a blade strapped to the small of her back and held it up in front of the corpse’s neck. It seemed to fit nicely. She sheathed the weapon again in a fluid motion.

“He’s…” Naia said hesitantly from behind them.

“Are you sure you didn’t kill him?” Aran asked.

“Sure as there are sixty-two miin to a gost.” Shale grinned. “He was found yesterday morning. I was drunk last night, not the night before.”

“With that suspicion out of the way…” Ailmon interjected seriously, “the stab is clean through. That would require a lot of strength, so we’re most likely looking for a human and upwards man, or perhaps a woman of Shale’s stature. Also, there’s not that much slant to the stab, which would indicate someone as tall, or taller, than the victim. So now we’ve ruled out any of the small tribes, smaller humans and… well, dwarves, I suppose.”

At the mention of dwarves, Shale automatically drew a circle over her heart with her thumb, a superstitious gesture of protection.

“You’re …rather good at this, though, aren’t you?” Aran commented.

“I’m a court scribe,” Ailmon stated evenly and without any pride in his voice. “I’ve seen far too many murderers pass through to not pick certain logical methods up.”

A clatter behind them made all three of them turn. Naia had dropped something onto the tray of belongings she’d slowly been rummaging through in the background. She turned, an unusually subdued and worried expression on her face.

“What is it?” Ailmon asked.

“I don’t know… it’s…” She gestured to the meagre belongings on the tray and took a backwards step towards the doorway.

Ailmon, Shale, and Aran went to look.

“You could talk to him, couldn’t you?” Ailmon asked.

Naia went pale, staring at him. “Well, normally…” she just said and then gestured to the tray of belongings.

The tray held a notebook with a long string attached through the binding, a small leather pouch, a belt, a tattered, folded-up robe, and what looked to be a flat, circular, greenish stone.

“…You can talk to the dead?” Aran asked, sceptical disbelief clearly written on his face.

Before Naia could answer, Ailmon reached for the book and Shale took the stone.

“No!” Naia held out a hand to stop Shale.

The half-orc woman just looked at her, puzzled, as she held the stone. It was about the size of a small child’s palm, but looked very tiny in her large hand. It was smooth and flat and perfectly round.

Naia let her hand fall, just staring at the stone and then up at Shale. “It was…” she faltered.

Shale gave Naia a puzzled look and then turned the stone over, holding it up to the light of one of the lamps on the walls. “Weird thing. Pretty though. I’ve never seen a green rock before. Look at this. There’s almost a purple shine to it.” She held it out for the others to see.

Ailmon, still holding the notebook, leaned forward and examined the stone carefully. “It looks a bit too expensive to be in the hands of so destitute a fellow, doesn’t it?”

“Stop godsdamned playing with that thing!” Naia exclaimed.

All three turned to look at her, the corpse behind them forgotten.

“It’s… I’ve been trying to tell you. Something is wrong. Can’t you feel it?” Naia gestured to the small rock in Ailmon’s hand. “That thing feels off, wrong, like the stink of egg-farts and–” Her eyes suddenly widened, and she stared behind them, a flare of dark fire appearing instantly in her hand.

The three whipped around, Aran and Shale both with a hand on their weapon hilts. It took them a few seconds to register what was wrong, but then it hit them: The pale, waxy skin on the corpse’s chest was rippling, almost imperceptibly, as if the dead man were in the midst of some unholy, post-mortem shudder.

“Oh, shit!” Naia exclaimed behind them and suddenly the dead man’s head rolled sideways, staring blindly at them. A noxious cloud, greenish in colour, spilt forth between the slack jaws and conquered the room.

“Out!” Aran shouted, and in a panicked tumble, all four made for the doorway. Shale grabbed Ailmon and hauled him along as Aran slammed into her, forcing her towards Naia who was first out the door.

Aran felt Shale’s large body grow strangely sluggish against him as they entered the circular room beyond the chamber at a run. Shale’s grip on Ailmon faltered just as Ailmon’s steps became slow mere seconds after they’d gotten clear of the corpse chamber.

Then Ailmon and Shale slowly collapsed, first onto their knees and then to the floor.

“Help!” Naia shouted and a commotion of alchemists came running towards them to see what the fuss was about, accompanied by Aran’s frantic attempt to pull both unresponsive freelancers as far away from the room with the dead man as possible.

Both Shale and Ailmon lay unresponsive as several of the alchemists rushed in with potions and smelling salts. Somewhere in the confusion, a nasal shout of “Elsbeth” was heard, and Naia started loudly explaining that the corpse had vomited a cloud of green gob on them.

Aran quickly looked into the chamber, but the corpse lay there, just as they had left it, head tilted to the side. Some of the braver alchemists rushed into the chamber with the corpse, the small Doctor Cosmo loudly directing the action.

Aran and Naia both knelt at the side of their fallen compatriots. Ailmon stirred when one of the helpers held a vial under his nose. A few moments later, Shale started blinking and batting away Aran’s hand on her shoulder.

Shale slowly held up her hand. “Fingers,” she stated woozily. “Fingers and heads and door handles.”

“…What?” Aran and Naia looked at each other.

Ailmon reached for Naia’s hand, holding it tightly.

“Think you can get to your feet?” Naia asked, clearly puzzled at the unusual show of familiarity.

Ailmon nodded, looking a little panicked, and she hauled him to his feet, helping him steady himself.

Shale blinked and sat up. “What the fifteen Hells…”

“Well, you and Ailmon fell over suddenly,” Aran explained.

“Hm, that’s new…” She took the hand he held out to her and shakily stood up. “You didn’t see the… things?”

“What things? Alright, that’s enough. We’re getting out of this damned basement and getting a drink!” Naia stated.