The tip of Climb’s sword was over the throat of a poorly dressed thug. “Please! I just work for them! They’re the only work to be had! That’s all! I’m not a bad guy!”
Climb did not lower his guard. This was the third person to tell a story like that, and the last two used the moment his sword went away from their necks, to go for his own. This time… he took a deep breath. “Roll over.” Climb ordered, and the shaking slender, scruffy thug obeyed with trembling, fear filled body.
The blonde young warrior went down over the body of his captive and put his sword away, then bound the captured criminal with ropes, tying the unfortunate man’s hands behind his back. There was no incident ‘this’ time.
“Four houses down, and the day is still young.” He murmured.
“D-D-Did you say four houses down?” The thug stammered the question, twisting his head to the side so he could look up into Climb’s face.
“Yes.” Climb answered, standing up and wiping sweat from his brow. The warm feel of salty wetness stained his glove, and he cast his hand away, spattering it onto the floor beside his prisoner.
“Six Arms will… you know they’ll retaliate, right? Couple’a raids is the costa doing business.” The thug’s ‘I’m a victim’ persona melted away as a sneer took over the part of his face that Climb could see. “But this’s like goin to war, boy.”
His sneer was quickly replaced by a look of confusion when Climb didn’t react. That confusion froze on his face, “There’s nobody left to lead you. The heads of every Six Arms leader were delivered to King Ramposa this morning by the adamantite team Axel. They got everything. Names and locations for safe houses, goods, and any important members who wouldn’t have been with Six Arms that evening. The King’s soldiers are sweeping the whole city, and a message was even sent with relevant information to the Baharuth Emperor himself so you could be wiped out everywhere. There’s nowhere left to go. You. Are. Done.”
The thug began to kick and thrash on the floor like a toddler throwing a tantrum until Climb grabbed him by the neck and yanked him up to his feet. It extinguished the last spark of resistance, and he meekly walked ahead of his blonde captor, sword tip at his back and out into the daylight he went.
There sat a carriage with dozens of others bound together, nor was that the only one.
“This is going to be a long, long day, but I think I’ll call it a good one.” Climb said as he helped the broken thug into the back where an armed guard would bind the captive to his fellows.
“Yeah, yeah it will be. Eight Fingers got my sister addicted to black dust. I found her working as a dust whore in the last brothel we hit… may they all get the ax.” The guard answered, glaring with hate down at men who would not meet his eyes.
Climb had nothing to say to that.
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Ramposa sat at the table still staring at the heads of the Eight Fingers leadership. The heads stared at him through empty eyes, all upright on the folded up robes of the member to leave no head behind. “I am beyond impressed. You really did deliver on your promise, and you’ve earned your reward many times over.”
The old king sat with his hands folded over one another, and looked up to the adventurer team that stood a few feet away. “There is only one more thing I can ask your help with.”
“My daughter is going through the documents we seized, the corruption is far, far worse than I believed. My… my son. He is one of the ones involved with Eight Fingers.” The King’s voice was empty of emotion until he said that, the wrinkled old fist slammed down on the table. “Didn’t I give him everything?! He was born to wealth! Status! Power! Even the throne was his by right of birth! But still he turns to this?! Destroying his own country for what…?! Pocket change?!” The King’s eyes turned dour, he stared down at the table between his hands, true rage and betrayal haunted the old man’s eyes.
“Forgive me for unloading this on you… I shouldn’t. But my eldest son is not fit to rule. I have known this since he was young, I tried to guide him properly, but he… no. It doesn’t matter.” King Ramposa gritted his teeth, “Everyone responsible for involvement in Eight Fingers, whether it be gambling with them, or working for them, or trading with them, or protecting them, is going to be arrested and their entire noble house dissolved. Whether it be the patriarch or their children. After that, I will be elevating new nobles. I know you asked for the rulership of Carne, and if you insist on that reward, I accept it. But I ask that you consider elevation to one of the larger estates. I will provide one to each of you, if that is alright.”
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Princess Renner was more than pleased. Locked in her room, a curious looking faceless man with three holes in his face, a winged succubus, and the more familiar Demiurge, were tearing through documents as fast as their eyes could move.
For the Princess, it set her skin afire with excitement. ‘Working with non-idiots is such an utter joy!’ Her black soul sang, pages were set aside, key points marked, and quills flew over paper as fast as the ink would run. Renner’s dainty fingers turned dark at the tips from the ink stains, and yet there was no slowing down.
The sound of pages flipping and being stacked up as arrest warrants were issued and evidence compiled for each and every conspirator was inspiring. Between the four of them, the completion of the task took the better part of a day. But it was done, and when it was done, Renner looked over the many individual stacks of paper and said, “This is a small town’s worth of executions ahead.”
“Is that a problem?” The sultry dark haired demoness asked.
Renner shook her head, “No, Lady Albedo, not at all. We’ll just have to hire a few new executioners is all. With my brothers out of the way and… this? All I can say is…” Renner stopped, moved from her chair to the floor, and flung herself prostrate to the trio. “I pledge myself and my Kingdom to the will of our shared master. And also… thank you for helping me today, it was a true pleasure.”
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“So she is as intelligent as you said, mein guter Demiurge.” Pandora’s Actor said, and to that the archdevil could only agree.
“Yes, she is. She will be useful in handing this box of jewels to our lord.” Demiurge agreed, “A fine bargain in exchange for one underfed puppy.”
Albedo’s wings folded in around her body, the prostrate woman had yet to move, but the Guardian Overseer, acutely aware that her master had somehow changed, looked at the golden princess as much as a potential threat, as she did a useful tool. “Yes,” Albedo added, “as long as she remembers her place, and doesn’t seek elevation beyond her station… everything will be fine.”
Renner chose not to answer, her answer, she knew, lay in her behavior.
“Finish the rest yourself,” Albedo said with a sweet, matronly voice, “and you will get everything you desire.” Then the gate opened, and one by one the trio left the Princess alone.
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When word of the job reached them as was intended, days passed like hours as Foresight spread rumors and stories of the wealth that lay ahead. Imina's elven heritage proved useful, telling stories 'from her father' who had heard stories from his father's father centuries before of a powerful lord of greed who hoarded fortunes in his tomb. Stories of powerful artifacts spread among the rumor mills of the worker bars and taverns. But through it all, they searched for any hint of the missing Arche.
In the end, meeting in private on the day of departure, Hekkeran could only rub his forehead and say, “We’ve done our best… all we can do now is hope it’s enough. Listen to me…” He looked from Imina to Roberdyck, “the woman who kicked my ass, she looked human, but I don’t think she was. Someone that strong, I’d have heard a rumor of at least. Adventurer or worker, there’s no way someone like that just ‘exists’ without me hearing about it. In other circumstances I’d think she was a foreigner, maybe from the Theocracy, but the look on her face… no, she’s not human. If she’s not in charge there, who knows what kind of monsters we’ll face. Remember what I told you she said? If we fail to rescue Arche…”
Imina touched his arm and looked up at her lover’s eyes, “Don’t think about that. We’re ‘Foresight’, we’ve survived terrible things, we’ll survive this too. And when it comes down to it, you’ll do the right thing.”
That was the end of the discussion.
The fast spreading rumors brought scores of teams together outside the tomb, making the gathering space on the outskirts look more like the beginnings of a village than a temporary camp. A few of the usual sorts came along for the trip, camp followers and traveling merchants eager for a chance to profit off the life risking efforts of the workers who expected a lot of coins burning holes in their pockets.
‘We did a really good job with those rumors at least.’ He said, looking around the lively, previously empty landscape. It was the largest gathering of workers that any of them had ever seen.
“Parpatra, good to see you.” Hekkeran said beneath the light of a full moon. The pair clasped hands, the wrinkled old man, though in his seventies, seemed as vigorous as Hekkeran recalled. “Dragon Hunt is ready to plunge into the darkness again, is it?” The leader of Foresight asked of his counterpart.
Despite having the strength of a man in younger years, Parpatra’s voice betrayed his age, “Well, dragons are a greedy lot, and when we get word of treasure to be had, we have to fly to where it can be found. How could we miss this chance?” The old man teased, at his back the rest of his team of humans chuckled and tapped their weapons, voicing silent agreement.
“I guess that’s true.” Hekkeran agreed, the sound of crunching dirt underfoot caused him to turn around, he glanced down to see the short, stocky body of Gringham, leader of Heavy Masher.
As broad as he was short, Gringham made up for his size with having considerable strength and wearing thick armor over powerful muscles. It was often rumored that he had dwarven blood in his ancestry. His fondness for beer, heavy weapons, and love of dark underground places hinted at it along with his height.
Middle aged and swarthy with a pug nose and dark beard, Gringham’s voice was deep and gravelly, “Hekkeran, Parpatra… ‘that man’ is here too.” Though rough, he kept his voice to a whisper. “Hekkeran, try to keep Imina from him, he’s been… at it again with his elf slaves for awhile now.”
Hekkeran cocked his ear, and then he caught it, a very tiny hint of crying. He grimaced. “Erya Uzruth of Tenmu… that scum.”
“It’s a different set from last time too, I guess… the others were lost.” Gringham added.
Hekkeran blinked several times, he knew what the short leader of Heavy Masher meant. Erya was a powerful swordsman from the Slane Theocracy who took human supremacy seriously. His personality was so disagreeable that despite being compared to Gazef Stronoff, he couldn’t find or form a team, and so he bought mentally broken elf slaves to provide magical backup. He only ever purchased female elves, and he never properly armed or equipped them in any way, nor were they spared his advances when there was free time.
‘Scum…’ Hekkeran thought again, the leering eye the blonde swordsman turned on Imina, and his contempt for her half elven ancestry, it brought lingering hatred that was made worse by virtue of the fact that the leader of Foresight knew he couldn’t defeat Tenmu if it came down to it. ‘Maybe if I’m lucky, he’ll encounter the blonde monster that put me down… there’s a cheerful thought.’
It was enough to perk the leader of Foresight up, “So,” Hekkeran changed the subject and did his best to ignore the distant cries, “you brought all fourteen members this time?”
Gringham grunted, “Aye, we were going to go on another job soon, if we had, heh, I’d only have brought a small team this time. Thank goodness for small favors, I hear this tomb is big…” He turned his eyes to the place, it had large columns that towered overhead and a great open courtyard in front of it. The stone roof appeared to be marble and carved by extraordinarily gifted artisans.
“I’ve heard the same, but…” Parpatra stroked his wizened old chin, “I don’t recognize anything we’ve seen of it so far. Not the symbol carved on the outer stones, and not the design. I’ve seen a lot of ruins, but never anything quite like this.”
“The world is a big place, and we know there were a lot of things that were lost in the collapse six hundred years ago. Who knows?” Hekkeran shrugged it off, “For all we know the collapse six hundred years ago wasn’t even the first of its kind? Perhaps this is from an even earlier age.”
Parpatra tapped the butt of his spear on the ground, “That’s possible, we know so little about those days…” He looked away from his fellow team leaders, a number of other worker teams were forming camp and getting ready for the exploration the next day.
“A lot of people took up this job… I hope there’s enough treasure to go around.” Parpatra added, he didn’t look up when there was a particularly despairing scream from the tent of the ‘team’ Tenmu.
“Well, we could come to a kind of… collective agreement, the three of us. Whatever our teams find, we all agree to divvy up accordingly.” Gringham said, his voice went up a little to drown out the dying wail at his back.
“You have fourteen members, Hekkeran has only four, and I have the same, that’s not really an even split no matter how you slice it.” Parpatra pointed out while stroking his short white beard. “Speaking of four… I haven’t seen that pretty little one, the blonde caster… Arche, is she around?”
“She’s… close by.” Hekkeran said with a cough and shifted the subject back to the matter at hand by turning to Gringham and adding, “Our very ancient old friend here is right. You’d get a lot more shares than we would out of a deal like that.”
“Ahhh, what if we go in first, and take the biggest risk as compensation.” Gringham pitched, and that was enough.
“Agreed.” Parpatra said, and Hekkeran could only nod.
“Is this… really worth it?” Hekkeran asked, “Just gold? I mean?”
Gringham grunted, “Yeah, gold is life, it’s what we strive for, you know that. And we’ll take it any way it comes… even if we have to work with…” He jabbed his thumb over his shoulder, a different voice began to wail like the first, “that.”
Hekkeran walked away with a mute, dead eyed stare to return to his comrades in their own small tent. “When this is over,” he said, “after we’ve saved Arche, I’m done. I don’t want to do ‘this’ anymore. It’s pointless.”
Roberdyck sighed, “My friend,” the middle aged cleric answered, “I’ve toyed with the same thought many times, I’ve only stuck with this as long as I have because of who I work with. If we part ways, I’ll find a village somewhere and settle down as a local priest. That will be good enough for me.”
“I go where you go, even if that means no more tombs or caves.” Imina said instantly, “But first… first we rescue Arche. I pray to the gods she’s alright… what if… what if they’re torturing her? What if they’re…” She tried not to think of the other possibilities and tuned out the suffering of an elven woman in the Tenmu tent.
“Don’t think about it, most monsters aren’t interested in humans like that at least, just… get some rest, tomorrow we get started, and hopefully… hopefully it all works out.” Hekkeran said, and went to his bedroll to collapse into ugly, ugly dreams.