“So, they are definitely committing theft of lifeforce. And definitely without …consent,” the paladin said. He sounded tired when he said the word ‘consent’, which made Arne suppress a laugh. It was nice to know that even paladins had limits to how much stupid they could take. He wouldn’t have thought so.
The wounds to Garrett's face had been healed this time around when he had met them at the tavern that had a private room. Arne had picked the place at random when they came to Estrin so they had a place to gather where only they knew the address, so nobody could plan an ambush or have people in place beforehand.
Garrett now shone in all his masculine glory, regarding them with eyes that were an extravagant shade of blue, as deep and saturated a colour as a ghost-bell flower.
“I never thought I’d sit at a table with a paladin. I mean, voluntarily,” Toog mused, clearly not paying attention. “Do people call on you for this sort of thing all the time or is this rare?”
“Call on us to verify what three obvious villains with no regard for the lives of others are doing claiming a race of ancient evil is wiggling back onto this plane of existence from a celestial prison?” Garrett asked. “I won't exactly call it a standard happening.”
“So, how many times do you have to deal with gnome related crimes?” Toog persisted.
“Gnome related?” Garrett asked, clearly not used to people suddenly pressing incomprehensible agendas.
Toog just nodded.
“Well, we don’t necessarily patrol neighbourhoods unless there’s a reason to, but I know from some of our contacts in the Estrin night watch that the cocaine bars are a lot less troublesome than one would think.”
“So, they don’t stampede here?” Toog asked.
“Aaaand back to the plan,” Arne said, seeing Dia about to explode with impatience. “Yes, the Family is committing theft of lifeforce. Just as I told you. Do you believe me now?” he asked Garrett.
“Us!” Dia snapped. “Do you believe us!”
“Us…” Arne amended and looked at the paladin for an answer.
“I believe they are committing theft of lifeforce, yes. But your other claims have yet to be substantiated. And that is on the assumption that you are in fact in opposition to them. All manner of collusions might lurk below the scene.”
Dia made an angry, frustrated sound. “Paladins are supposed to just shout ‘die, evildoer’, and start murdering people,” she snapped. “That’s the only way you work. Every one of you I ever killed have done that!”
“Will it surprise you to know that the paladins of Justice have to be careful about acting in a just manner?” Garrett asked calmly. “And simply for the sake of interest, how many paladins have you killed and what happened before they shouted ‘die, evildoer’? Is it conceivable that you were in fact doing evil?” he asked in an almost conversational tone.
“Aaaaand back to the plan,” Arne repeated, exasperated. “Tonight, we go there, deal with their priests and see if we can get a tentacle-eye-goop-darkness beast to follow us. Last time it was reluctant to leave the Family house,” he explained to the paladin, “the thing didn’t cross the giggle grope, and with a bit of luck it won't tonight either…”
“Giggle grope?” the paladin asked.
“The fountain,” Dia said and continued, “And shouldn’t the paladin just go in alone? Why do we have to be in danger? He’s the one who needs to see it.”
“Yes, but I doubt he’ll be happy traipsing in there alone since we got the only paladin with a brain for some reason,” Arne snapped back. “And if he snuffs it, his pally pals will come directly for us for retribution.”
“So, he should just buck the ferret and get his job done so we can move on,” Dia said testily.
“Would you trust us?” Toog asked, incredulous. “I wouldn’t. I don’t.”
“No, but we don’t trust him either, so we’re even,” Dia replied, pointing at the paladin across the table.
“We don’t even trust each other,” Arne interjected, annoyance building. “So can we please move on? Please. We’re going. And Dia, maybe if it doesn’t work and we end up being followed by a hideous, gigantic squid-monster with unholy eyes for skin, we can call it Phase One of that plan you suggested earlier this morning. How about it?”
“…You don’t even trust each other?” the paladin asked nobody in particular, clearly caught between impressed and incredulous. “Why, exactly, are you doing this, then?”
“That’s a really private question,” Toog answered.
Everyone at the table fell silent.
“So, I'm going to guess that the reason you three are even sitting at the same table–“ Garrett began.
“It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you have to see the threat, which is tentacled and definitely not us,” Arne added. “So therefore, in five hours we will meet near the tavern where we met this afternoon. We will go into the Family’s house, deal with the priests quietly and see if they have a tentacle waiting, who we can have a chat with. Then we will flee, exactly as last time, and hopefully Sir Garrett will have seen enough to take the threat seriously and the paladins can take over because they are more qualified. Questions?”
All three opened their mouths.
“One at a time!” Arne stated, pointing at Garrett. “Problem child first.”
“I don’t have a problem going in there quietly, but I won't attack first, and I won't stab someone in the back. I don’t assume this comes as a surprise, but it bears mentioning.”
“Don’t worry about it. We would never think to ask that of you,” Arne said, making a mental note to attack first, so the paladin wouldn’t have to.
“Somehow, that acquiescence strikes me as entirely too quickly obtained…” Garrett commented, a warning tone to his voice.
“Let’s stand still above that kittle when it finds us,” Arne brushed it off and pointed at Dia.
“I can't hurt it with magic. We already tried it. I can't even sense it or take anything from it, and I can't slam it with anything. Maybe the paladin knows how to hurt it.” She gave a too big, fake smile.
“Good idea.” Toog nodded. “Information sharing is so important to healthy teamwork. Do you know how to hurt them?” Toog turned to Garrett, “Because I threw a burning potted plant at it, and it just kept coming. For Arne, granted. But still…”
Garrett looked around at them. “You’ve fought them previously by… running away?”
“Sums it up,” Toog smiled.
“Well, eh… there are all the classics. Silver, blessed, magical, holy-forged weapons…” he counted on his fingers. “Potentially cursed, but let’s not go there… One of these might hurt them. Hard to tell before we face them.”
“But you have a blessed, magical, holy-forged silver sword, I take it?” Arne asked, feeling tired at their ineptitude and how far out of their depth they really were. Curse The Vampire to the Hells and back!
“Yes.” The paladin stated his reply like it was a stupid question.
Arne sighed. “Fine. I have an idea. We’ll be ready. Or, well, I don’t know how to help you, Dia. Except maybe, if all goes to shit, we could be allowed to think blunt force would harm it.”
“Weren’t you listening?” Dia asked.
“I meant like a large number of bricks falling on it,” Arne clarified, and watched Dia about to snap at him and then suddenly realise she could aim at the walls around the creature instead of the creature itself. He couldn’t keep a grin back at the aha-look on her face. “Just make sure we aren’t in the way, too.”
For the first time since the desert, Dia grinned back.
o-0-o
Delegating… Arne prided himself on being really good at it. Knowing who to place tasks with based on their expertise and who to trust with responsibilities was an artform. Delegating, however, only worked when those you delegated to could even marginally be trusted to do the task they were delegated. Arne had thought he would have time to sleep for a couple of hours before the action, but instead he had to run some errands.
Blessed, the paladin had said… Holy… Well, he knew of one source of …probably holy. He was happy to learn that the temple of Debauchery did indeed bless their lubricant and were perfectly happy to sell him a keg of it. Nobody blinked when he asked for a laurel scented version. He paid them in money he had pickpocketed on the way there through the evening streets and left with a small keg of blessed, laurel scented personal lube.
Next, he needed a way to make sure he couldn’t be scryed upon, provided that was something he could buy his way to; he honestly didn’t know. He finally found a magic shop in a seedy alley after greasing a tiresome number of palms, but the shop was a much better choice than the large, above board establishments found in Arabesk, where all purchases were logged and registered to a ridiculous degree and finding a mage gone rogue was rare. He really should have paid more attention to the magic side of things…
At the store he learned that an amulet to prevent scrying was currently just within his budget, and he happily bought it, hoping it was legit. Well, only one way to find out, he thought. If he did what he intended and was immediately buried under a zeal of angry paladins, then no, it didn’t.
The object itself was shaped as a small tin donkey pendant on a leather string. Hopefully, the seller was aware that his customer would come back and murder him with it if handing the customer an ass on a string should turn out to be prophetic.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
He deposited the keg of lube in his small, rented apartment, took an hour to have a cup of hot cat business, not wear boots and put his feet up. Then he smeared his weapons with the blessed lube, feeling exceedingly silly, but forced himself to live with it. If there was even a slim chance it would work, it was worth the personal humiliation.
He supposed he could give some to Toog, though that would have to be worded carefully. He laughed to himself as he got his gear ready and headed out. They would meet in about twenty minutes, and he wanted to have removed the night watcher at the Family’s house before then, so there wouldn’t be any problems on entry.
Having a paladin loudly announce their presence to the gatekeeper would be highly cumbersome. Better to let whoever it was bleed out quietly in a broom closet.
This little solo mission was also a great way to test whether the paladins could scry on him after his purchase of the amulet. Heart pounding in fearful anticipation of what they would likely have to face later tonight, he sneaked into the Family house.
o-0-o
“Godsdammit…” Arne sighed quietly.
“Maybe there’s a basement? They could be hiding there?” Toog suggested.
“Or maybe they knew we were coming,” Arne said, futilely shining his shadow-lantern around the ceiling of the last room on the upper floor of the Family house, devoid of priests, monsters, death crabs… the only living people in the building were the cultists living there in a wing of the refurbished building. They had been everywhere. Although they had found a private garden off the orgy hall from which there was access to a plant-shaded pergola with a shallow fountain, nobody was there, and no threats lurked in the ceiling.
“If they are still here, I would guess they are hiding with the cultists who live here. We could go look, but…” Arne shrugged, defeated. “We were here for a monster and kidnapping a priest is out of the question at this point, I suppose?” he asked the paladin.
“I would want to see the monster before I could commit to abducting anyone for any purpose, yes.”
“Let’s just get out of here,” Dia said and yawned. Then she turned and walked towards the stairs down. “Not half bad, though…” she called over her shoulder. “At least the paladin will give up and go home now.”
Toog nodded sagely, staring at Garrett. “I guess he will.”
Arne felt tired. It had been a good idea, but…
“How did they know?” the paladin asked and all three of them followed after Dia, walking through the quiet Family house, not bothering to hide their presence.
Dia stopped in her tracks, and Arne quickly said, “Let’s talk about that somewhere else,” to buy time.
Arne's mind was working hard on an explanation that didn’t include letting the paladin in on Dia’s relationship with Chuckles. He was pretty sure ‘collaborating with the enemy on a mental level’ or whatever they would call it would earn them all the paladins’ deepest immediate disapproval and they would probably use that as an excuse to do nothing once they were done ‘justly’ murdering all three of them.
They made it out of the Family house without incident. Dia briefly gave them a middle finger salute and left without a word. Toog stopped and stared after her for a moment.
“I’m off. I assume you aren’t going to arrest Arne?”
The paladin stared at Toog, clearly confused.
“See you tomorrow,” Arne just said, not sure if he had heard a note of disappointment in Toog’s voice and ignoring it if he had.
Toog shrugged and left, walking softly in the moon-cast shadows of the houses lining the quiet street, a shade in the shades.
Arne exhaled slowly. This was the worst possible outcome. He hadn’t even considered that the Family could do a thing like this. Refuse to be a threat.
And then, as they were walking in the direction of Arne's lodgings, the ocean stretching in moonlit splendour beyond the docks at the end of the street, it hit him.
The ocean.
A thrill of genuine horror crept up his spine as information condensed into a theory that was truly terrifying in its sheer enormity. “I think I just figured something out,” he said quietly. The paladin stopped and looked at him. “Why are you still here?” Arne asked Garrett as an afterthought. “I’m serious. Why aren’t you off to bring a whole crusade of paladins down on us?”
“I have orders to observe you, and whatever is going on, you aren’t done plotting.” Sir Garrett said calmly.
“So… are you going to stare sweetly at me while I sleep? Cook me breakfast?”
The paladin looked like he was suppressing a laugh. “Let’s stay on topic?” he suggested and started walking again, clearly expecting Arne to follow.
He did. “I’m serious, though. Why didn’t you follow Dia? She’s clearly the more dangerous of us and it’s actually deeply irresponsible for her to be in a populated area of any kind, let alone a city this size.”
“I’m certain you are right, but it’s also abundantly clear that you are the one who sets the tone for your terrible trio for better or… well, for worse or worse, I suspect.”
Arne unclipped his mask and drew his hood back.
“Thank you, that’s slightly less unnerving,” the paladin said conversationally and walked on until they came to the end of the harbour complex.
No harbour was ever quiet at night, but they were far from the main piers where the large trading vessels landed, and this end of the city mostly had small fishing vessels moored.
“You know I'm not going to beg you to stay and help, right?” Arne asked, just for clarification. He followed the paladin on to a wooden pier that creaked softly under their footfalls.
“I know.” Garrett sat down at the edge of the pier, defiantly turning his back as he dangled a foot over the water and looked at the moon silvering the surface of the calm ocean that stretched before them in inky glory.
“So why are you still here?” Arne demanded, a twig of annoyance finally snapping in his chest with a brittle crunch. “Are you sticking around because you think I’m up to something devious and tentacle-related?” he snapped. “Keeping me busy until your friends come and kill me?”
“You are devious when you need to be, I’m sure,” Garrett nodded, not looking at him. “But not this much. If you had been in league with them, you would have made sure there was something for me to see. The fact that there was nothing to find curiously makes you more believable. By a margin. Not a big one.”
“Let me just go elsewhere to wallow in your vote of confidence for a bit…” Arne turned to leave. All in all, this was better than he had expected. Going into this, he had assumed the paladins would either fix the problem and leave them out of it or end up killing all three of them.
“I will let Commander Renn know that I recommend continuing to work with you to figure out what's going on. Stealing that much lifeforce is not innocent,” Garrett said calmly.
Arne stopped in his tracks and turned back. Garret wasn’t even looking at him. He was just lounging at the end of the pier, seemingly enjoying the moonlit spectacle with one foot up and the other dangling over the side. It was both odd, offensive, and calming at the same time. To even have this conversation with a paladin, to be considered that little of a threat and to maybe believe Garrett wasn’t a raging hypocrite but was actually going to investigate fairly… that last thing seemed too good to be true. It was probably a ruse.
“I have no doubt the only reason you three are here is fear of something bigger and more dangerous than you,” the paladin continued, still calm and unruffled. “Care to stay a while and tell me about it?”
“If you were in fact right, then my life would depend on my silence and you should know I couldn’t possibly tell you anything,” Arne approached, fighting the urge to push the paladin into the harbour. He had a strong feeling Sir Garret was perfectly well aware of this and just testing his restraint.
“Right. I didn’t exactly expect you to tell me. Miracles of Justice do happen, but usually not through proven scoundrels. Then answer me one question truthfully, and know that if I find that you lied, you will spend the short rest of your life desperately trying to flee Justice and you will not succeed.” Garrett looked up and against his better judgement, Arne sat down too, leaning on one of the mooring poles on the opposite side of the wooden jetty.
“What?” Arne asked. “Is it going to be romantic in nature? Because I’m not dressed for that.”
“Is the person, organisation or entity who compels you to be here, involved with whatever the Family is working to achieve?” the paladin asked, ignoring the comment.
Arne considered mincing words but shook his head and went with the simple, if boring, solution. “Not to my knowledge, no,” he said simply.
Garrett regarded him for a while. “Very well, then,” he stated. “I will do my best to help you get the proof you hope for and involve my order if indeed it turns out to be a just cause.”
“So, you actually …trust me on this?”
“I trust you to do a whole lot of things, yes.”
“You are very vague, you know that?” Arne mused. “I don’t actually know if you’re sincere. It’s like talking with Dia. She’s also really funny sometimes, but I don’t know if it’s by accident.”
Garrett gave a small but genuine laugh and turned where he sat so they could look at each other. “One problem at a time. Let’s deal with your tentacles first.”
“I have a theory about why there weren’t anyone there tonight but let’s talk about that tomorrow. We can figure out what to do then,” Arne said and made to get up.
Garrett gestured him to stay. “Tell me now. The more I have to bring back to the chapterhouse, the more likely they are to approve our cooperation.”
Arene stared at him blankly. ”You want me to tell you everything we did the last couple of …months so this makes sense?”
“I really, really want that, yes,” the paladin said and scooted over a bit so he could lean on a mooring pole too. He looked expectantly at Arne. “I should be back at the chapterhouse around dawn, but I have until then. Don’t hold back.”
Arne just looked blankly at the man, sitting so casually across from him. There was so much information to sift through and to strain off from the tale that he wasn’t sure where to begin.
“I’ll assume the delay isn’t because you are considering being honest and don’t know how to do it…” Garrett said, a grin hiding in the corner of his mouth.
“Aha, that’s much better,” Arne said, relieved to have a few moments of mutual insults to gather his thoughts. “That’s much closer to the narrowminded, prejudiced accusations I had expected from a paladin.”
“I can certainly see how expecting honesty from those around you would come across as offensive to you,” Garrett said.
“Now you are doing it again. I can’t tell if you are being sincere or funny.”
“I’m impatiently awaiting your sensibly ordered narrative.”
“You’re hoping you can pressure me into slipping up and giving you more than I intended, aren’t you?”
“Absolutely. That would be nice.”
Arne laughed. “I’ve done what you are doing right now so many times in my professional life. I really doubt I’ll fall for it. But respectable of you to try.”
“Thank you. You could just tell me what’s going on and be done with it?”
“Fine. Here’s the short and clean version. When we entered the Family house in Arabesk, there were five lights placed around the summoning pool. I noticed it, but it did nothing for me at the time because then we were attacked by the thing with…” he sighed and wiggled his fingers in front of him to show tentacles, unwilling to let his thoughts or words rest on the dark creature that had followed them.
The paladin just nodded.
“So, later on, in a smaller town, we encountered others of the Family and saw them call forth a death crab. Like the one we sent you. They also had five points of lamps around the summoning pool. None of that makes sense to me, you know? I have no expertise with magic, so it might be nothing, which is why I wanted Dia in on this so she could roll her eyes at my ineptitude.” He kept the fact that Dia and Toog had done a circular motion when summoning the death crab during the tractionless hobo-orgy, as if they were defining five points, to himself. He didn’t feel like Garrett needed to know of their bonus activities summoning up the critters they were trying to stop.
“But if it isn’t nothing, then it would be…” the paladin prompted.
Arne held up a hand to stop him. “Not quite there yet. There are other details to consider and explain. Namely that we previously spoke to one of the creatures inhabiting a priestess of the Family. Or maybe not inhabiting. I guess it would just be a twinned version of some random wench who went there to get her horny on. At any rate, the twinned creature told us that a star was drawn across the oceans and Arabesk and Uldran Underwaves were among them. And that three of them have been unlocked,” he explained, romanticising the truth a bit so as not to let a paladin know that Dia was harbouring Chuckles. If the paladins of Justice decided to kill her for it, retrieving her corpse for The Vampire would likely be a nightmare. “It specifically said that two more points of the star must be unlocked before they are free of the prison.”
“Arabesk and Uldran,” Garrett said. “What does it mean to unlock the points?”
Arne shrugged. “Some magic thingsidoo? But see, here’s the thing I realised.” He tapped his finger on the rough plank of the jetty they sat on. “This point is Estrin.” He moved his finger in a circular motion and tapped another point. “Along the coast is Arabesk.” He let his finger trace along another imaginary coastline and tapped another point. “Rasheed. Then the land ends, but the thing said Uldran Underwaves was one,” he said, pointing to across an imaginary ocean on the map. “And then another city over here,” he pointed. I think it would be Sonderport, but I need a map.” He drew a star between the five points on his imaginary map and looked at the paladin.
“And you think that the prison will break when all these five points have been unlocked?”
“Well, worse, actually.” Arne sighed. “The times we have seen summonings happen, they’ve been through a pool or a bowl of water.” He nodded at the calm, moonlit ocean. “I’m wondering about the size of what they are summoning if they need that big of a bowl.”