Don Telliduso was not happy. His day had been filled with mostly petty shit no one cares about and bad news. He sat on his chair behind a broad desk in the backroom of a former temple in the ruins of old Pliranto, the headquarters of the Carpet-Drenchers. To his left and right sat his two advisors and the only door was guarded by guards with daggers and short spears. Some of his closer officers and enforcers were there as well. He leaned his head with dark brown hair beginning to grey on his hand. Most of the bad news he had received that day were about lost territory in the south of old Pliranto. But he also knew there was an interesting point coming up on the agenda. An outsider had requested an audience with him with no direct goal stated, and was granted by all the people supposed to make sure Telliduso never had to deal with such folk. They must have bribed some of his officers quite well to be put through directly to him. When the time had finally come and they brought the outsider in, he had to let his laughter roar through the ancient room.
“Hey Patti, when I told you that I wanted some fine pussy, you didn’t need to take it that literally!” That got a laugh out of almost the entire room. Telliduso wasn’t sure how much the crolachan girl had understood, but she didn’t look amused to begin with anyway. “So, who are you and what can I do for you?” he asked in his splendid scholarian.
The crolachan stepped a bit closer, the guards to Telliduso’s side were alert, but her beckoned them to calm down. “My name is Nannade and I am here to gather information about and then dispose of the Lord of the Tunnels and the cult surrounding it, Don.”
Again, the room was laughing, except Telliduso. He looked into this girl’s bright green eyes and saw something. She did not scowl at him or anyone else, she did not deepen their eye contact, she did not even wince an eyelash. She knew what she said and how it sounded, and she was not afraid of what people thought about her. She had been beaten and humiliated countless times and she had risen from that stronger than before. And she had killed. Telliduso did not become Don by ignoring the looks in people’s eyes.
He leaned forward. “And what makes you think that we would give you any sort of help towards that?”
The girl let a smile graze her lips for a moment. “Because the occultists that revere him are also controlling your daily dealings and demanding tribute from you.”
“And what if the occultists find out that we helped an assassination attempt on their god? We would have dire problems then.”
“You’ll have dire problems anyway, because the ones who sent me will send more next time. I am not the trump card, I am merely the first hand to be dealt.”
She had given up on her life, and she was fine with letting that shine through. “Are you threatening me?”
“I am a threat to whoever protects you from the city up there, you could say that.”
Telliduso suspected something about the girl. He decided to poke at her some more.
“So, if we help you to slay the Lord, and let's assume you manage to do that, then what? What do we have from that?”
“A bit more time to pack up and hit the road before the blue swarm down here.”
Again, a round of chuckles. Her eyes remained as they were. The longer Telliduso looked, the more he was convinced to recognize something. He decided to get a closer look at her. He snapped his fingers and the footboy came to his side. “Prepare the private room.” He told the boy and off he ran.
The room had gone silent. Everyone seemed to regret laughing all of a sudden. Telliduso waited a while and looked at everyone’s faces. They seemed ashamed that they had not noticed something about the girl that their Don obviously had. They didn’t know what, they never knew in these situations, but Telliduso was fine with leaving them in the dark on most things. He stood up and walked past the girl. Two of his guards grabbed the girl and “accompanied” her along with him.
He went out into the main hall of the temple. Then he took a right into a smaller chamber with a small fountain on the wall. There the footboy stood, he put a key into the pedestal and turned it, then the two guards pushed the fountain to the side, revealing a stairway behind it. Before they went down, the Footboy handed Telliduso a small chest. He in turn gave it to Nannade, then stepped behind her and pushed her gently forward, as the two of them descended the stairway into a large storage area stuffed to the brim with all sorts of artefacts, relics and other treasures plundered from the ruins.
Amidst all the splendour, a small area was cleared for two armchairs, with a small table between them. He sat down and beckoned the crolachan to the chair and she sat down. Then he opened the chest and pulled forth a small box, two well-crafted ancient glass cups, and a bottle of the finest wine.
He opened the box and offered Nannade one of the two pipes inside, already packed. She refused. He took the other one and lit it. Then he poured both of them a cup. “I’ve been told you drink wine, don’t rebuff me again!” She accepted the cup and took a sip.
Finally, they had come to a relaxing point. He could tell the girl was still unsure what was going on, but he decided to just start asking away.
“So, girl. Show ‘em to me!”
The girl seemed irritated. “WHAT?”
“Don’t worry, I don’t mean your tits. I mean your marks.”
She still was none the wiser. “What marks are you talking about?”
“Come on, don’t play dumb. I know they gotta be somewhere one your body. Back? Chest? Inside of your thigh?” He asked that last one with a lewd twist in his voice.
The girl seemed to understand, she settled back down. “You can tell? How?”
“I guess if you won’t start, then I will.” He stood up, pulled his shirt out of his pants and lifted it up so she could see the mark on his belly, alongside the many gruesome scars. His name seal, designating him as “Green Hawk”, and the first mark of approval from the University of Plirova, no other. The girl’s eyes grew wide.
“So, I showed you mine, now show me yours.” He sat back down and took a deep sip from his cup.
She let her ears hang. “I’m sorry, Don, I don’t have mine yet. I have to fulfil this contract as part of my last test.”
“Hm! Wouldn’t have expected something this difficult. Are you sure you’re not an abysmal failure and they want to dispose of you in a convenient way with enough plausible deniability?”
He knew he hit a sore spot when that remark got her to slouch even more in shame and look away.
She didn’t make any attempts at keeping the conversation alive, so he went on.
“So, you’ve been sent to kill the monster, brave little pussycat. And you were just going to waltz into the gang’s headquarters and demand support? I have to admit, if some of my guys were as ballsy as you, half of them would be feared throughout Pliravo, and the other half would be dead. Now tell me: which one of these two halves do you think you’d belong to?”
The girl again answered nothing. She shrank even further in her chair, taking a careful sip from her cup.
He leaned towards her and slammed a hand on the small table, making Nannade jump up a bit in her chair. “If I hadn’t been the gentleman I am, you’d probably be passed around the room by now, no matter how strong and undefeatable you think you are. What kind of dumb girl does something like this? Those men were right to laugh at you. You were out of your league and I probably sound like your teacher right now, do I?”
She finally turned her head his way. “Yes, Don.”
“AND DON'T CALL ME DON!” As he yelled that, she drew her knees close to her face and curled up into a ball, as if she wanted to drop off the chair and roll into the shadows between the crates and veiled statues filling the room.
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
He sighed and calmed down. “Listen. I really don’t want to make you turn around and leave this be, because you seem really determined, but the damn beast is out of your league. Believe me I tried.”
She finally looked at him again and spoke up. “Is that where the scars are from?”
Telliduso nodded. The girl had barely sipped on her cup.
“I am not going to stop you from killing yourself, but I am also not going to help you defeat that thing. Do you know why?”
She shook her head.
“Well, think about it. Who were you supposed to kill?”
She mumbled something, so he had to encourage her to speak up. “The Lord of the Tunnels and the cult around it.” She finally said audibly.
“And none of us gangs? The Tongue-Takers, the Carpet-Drenchers, the Knuckle-Breakers?”
She shook her head again.
“And why do you think that is?”
She thought for a moment. “Because you’re no threat?”
“EXACTLY. We’re no threat. The only reason we can keep this up down here is because the cult protects us from the outside. And in return, they’re untouchable and we deliver them an offering every other day. Without them, the blue vests could just march down here and take us all apart. I am one of the few mages down here and most of my men don’t even know it. Because I’m not that good.”
“So, you deliver them the poor people to be sacrificed?” The girl asked carefully.
“The price needs to be paid, even if it is in blood.”
The girl seemed to think for a moment. “Can you give me as an offering?”
“You hope of getting in that way?”
She nodded.
“Well, it will be difficult. They don’t let you take anything down there. Are you a medium or do you have an arcanist’s hand?”
“I’m a medium.”
“And do you have a familiar with you? I haven’t seen anything around.”
“No, I got a spirit with me... by other means.”
Telliduso had to think for a moment, but then he understood. “Ah, so it’s an object-bound spirit. Yeah, you won’t be able to take it down there.” It was a rare practice these days, but spirits could be persuaded – or in rare cases forced – to enter and stay within an object until needed for a very specific purpose, but the amount of repeated daily rituals made it highly inconvenient, except for cults or religions that rely on daily rituals anyway.
“So, without weapons or your spirit, but let’s say you could take your spirit with you, it would still be impossible for you. No matter how well you think you’re trained. As I said. I tried, back when these stronzos moved in. Even without their Lord, they still put up a fight. Some of them are experienced arcanists, after all.” He leaned back in his chair and raised his cup to the girl to tell her to drink. Then he took a deep gulp and went on. “So, let’s imagine you can hide your mystic abilities from them and can take your sacred object with you – I don’t know, maybe in the smuggler’s compartment or the smuggler’s wife’s compartment – and you manage to get past the arcanists and the other occultists... then you still have to face a huge beast about as strong as three men, fast like a cat and clever as a human. Did I mention it can heal any wounds within seconds? It can and it’s terrifying. Believe me, I met him, the Lord of the Tunnels. That’s why I was the first one bow to the cult. I experienced first-hand what their wrath unleashed can do.”
The girl seemed to think about what he said for a while. Then she finally asked. “So, what would you do if the Lord and his cult fell?”
Telliduso scoffed at that hypothetical scenario. “I’d pack my things and run. No chance in hell would I be able to stand against the blue vests. Probably go to a smaller city and adopt a more honourable profession for a while until I can get back into the underworld game. I might be getting old I still know my way around thugs and crooks. But it’s a useless question. You can’t fell him. I tried and I finished more of my training than you did.”
“How come you stopped?”
He thought back for a while, finished his cup and poured himself another one. Then he told a bittersweet tale.
“I was seventeen, just got my first mark from the university of Plirova. Of course, at my age, I wasn’t properly enrolled there, got a private tutelage instead. My teacher, Grey Cat of Plirova, had connections. Before we were supposed to move on to Laeggdaunn for my second mark, he wanted to take one last job. At the time, a mage called Miratto ruled the entire Miratto underground here. He was really good, a former dean of the university turned power hungry. My teacher wanted to make his departure from Plirova one big show. So, he took the job. The blue vests were glad to send him and me instead of half an army into the tight tunnels, where numbers mean little. We came down here and Miratto took us apart. When his underlings had us surrounded, I pleaded with my teacher to leave well enough be. But he didn’t listen. He was killed by Miratto, who then offered me something: follow my master, or become his apprentice. I was never good in the arcane crafts. But he raised me up well. Taught me some powerful spells. And one day, I drove a dagger between his old ribs. I was not as good as him however and so I lost half the territory he held. But I am still the biggest fish in this underground pond.” He had finished and leaned back in his chair to wallow in nostalgia a bit more. “Then the cultists moved in. Those spunk stains are to us what we are to the shopkeepers in the slums and the inhabitants of the ruins.”
“And did you make the right decision?” the girl asked after a moment of silence.
He burst into laughter. “OF COURSE! Life has way too much wine and women to let me pass by. It has been over twenty-five years and I didn’t regret it one bit.” He watched the girl take bigger and bigger gulps from her cup. “You know, I could offer you the same. Being my apprentice.”
The girl seemed to check her environment before answering. “Are you being serious?”
“Sure. And I don’t even want to get into your pants. I never liked hairy ones. But you got gusto and the eyes of a killer. I could teach you a lot. And I could get you any book on magic you want. Maybe even some fake correspondences to enrol you into Plirova University. It’s no Northbridge, but it’s still pretty good. And in time, if we put our combined efforts and knowledge to it, we could take that cult down ourselves. Reclaim the underworld of Plirova. Together, no blue vest could stand in our way. We’d be the freest people below the pavement. How does that sound?”
The girl fidgeted with her feet and seemed to honestly contemplate the offer. “No.” she answered finally. “It sounds nice, but...” her pause got longer and longer.
“But what?” Telliduso leaned forward over to her. “Come on girl, you started it, now finish the sentence. I won’t kill you for words, I promise.”
"There’s a part of me that would seriously consider it. But I know my teacher would come after me. Either to recapture me or to claim the bounty on my head. And there’s another part of me that wants to kill you, slowly and painfully. Not when you’re old, but right now, in this moment.”
For a moment he had been sure to have her on his side. But not anymore. “Too bad. Most of the people here are knuckle heads. You may be a bit naïve, but you’re not stupid, that much I can tell.” He finished his cup.
“Well, this bottle is empty. Decide now, do you want me to pass you off as an offering? It could go wrong, considering you’re a medium, they could tell. They’d just kill you and you’d never see a single claw of the beast.”
“I am not yet prepared. I need to gather more info. You know, sneaking in shadows, collecting intel.”
Telliduso hummed in agreement. “Yes, but be sure to know your environment. This isn’t like the forest or the open city where you can hide on trees and rooftops. You almost always only have two directions to go and the tunnels are easily overseen.”
“Anything else you can help me with?”
“I told you. I won’t help you. I do want to get my revenge on these stronzos, but if that beast falls, and you are not on my side and strong enough, I am done for.”
“Well, let me at least repay you for the wine and the private audience. I will kill the Lord of the Tunnels and dispose of the cult. Even if it takes me half a year. Consider this your heads up, so you can pack your things.”
He chuckled and she almost joined in, he could tell. “I’ll miss you when you’re dead.”
She smiled “You might just be the one I’ll let get away. Or at least, I’ll kill you last.” Now she really chuckled. She finished her cup and together, they went back up.
The girl was escorted back out into the ruined city and Telliduso had finished his business for the day. He stared at the fresco on the ceiling of his open audience chamber from behind his desk. He might just start packing his things. Not because he believed the girl could do it, but because he believed she’d try. And if they caught her and find out he has been giving her even the little information he did, they would come for him. He’d also have to increase patrols, especially around the tunnels leading down to the sewers below the ruins. He poured himself another cup of wine.