“This heraldry held high in pride,

Elevated, his name, his might,

Atop the hands of men, held high,

Borne up, good sir, we all, he rides.

— The Ballad of Sir Joe, by “Golden-Voiced” Garbeaux.

As it turned out Aimee also had an interesting evening. This she related after the fact, that, from the carriage, she had been able to find a trail; the faint glow of magic. With great discomfort she pulled an old textbook from before she dropped out of college, finding a tracking spell. It was rudimentary magic, meant only to dissuade students from stealing one another’s materials. Theft was a pandemic at the magic college, and this would let the caster follow the steps taken by the person who stole from a magic student. It only worked to follow the original thief, tracking them within a day of having lost a personal item the caster had spent much time carrying.

This, it turned out, was plenty. The beacon glowed ever more bright in Aimee’s mind’s eye, and, eventually she found, laying in a heap of garbage, a small, sickly-looking child. “Oh, oh no … poor little thing.”

“Who’s there?” roared the little girl in a bizarrely deep voice, “I’ll cut ya!”

“You, you’re not a little girl!” Aimee staggered backward, narrowly avoiding the jagged edge of a rusty dagger.

“Who said I was!? I’ll cut them! Aimee stared hard at the bizarre, rag-clad fiend.

“You’re a dwarf man! How did you get so damned thin!?” With a wave Aimee erected a magic shield between herself and the dwarf, who was so sickly that his beard had fallen out entirely! The hair on his head was odd, sparse, thin, wispy stuff; like spider webs.

“Don’t ask me! Ask the crab. The crab’s got the good stuff, but he wants to sell food! Nobody wants your food, you abyssal idiot! Give me the damned drugs!” twitched the dwarf.

“The crab!? He’s just in town for a few days so I’m afraid you’re out of luck.” Aimee set her jaw. He clearly had stolen the focus but getting him to talk, or even pay attention, might be a challenge.

“Ha!” he laughed, “Who told you that? Yeah, his shop’s closed down during Grainfest, and he portals into the Abyss for the weekends, but he’s a regular! Got an illegal drug seller’s permit! He can buy ‘em, sell ‘em, but you better not use ‘em! Who said I did? I’ll cut ‘em!”

“A permit … for crime?” she shook her head, “Now look, you took my skull focus. I need it back. Now. Or else…” She furrowed her brow.

“Oh it’s ‘or else’, is it? Well what are you gonna do to get it, eh? What, girlie?” Reaching down to his loincloth the obvious addict suddenly found himself slammed against the wall, “Urk!”

He was maybe fifty pounds and he’d be less if dwarf bones weren’t so big, so Aimee just used Mage Hand, this time without backfiring, and held him to the stone wall by his neck. “That focus is worth more than anything else I own and trust me … it’s worth more than your life to me. Now cough it up.”

“I got nothin’! See!” he held his hands up, showing that he wasn’t holding anything, and, while that wasn’t proof, his hands looking fine and strong spoke volumes; not that he’d know.

“Then tell me who you handed it off to.” With a gesture she raised him up into the air and away from the wall, “Now!”

Half choking the dwarf tried to laugh, “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ … wait a second,” he started kicking his legs as she lifted him so his head was on the level of a nearby second-story window. “Wait, wait, wait! Are you crazy!?”

He was distant enough from Amee now that she had to shout, “Your fingers aren’t black so I know you didn’t touch it much or for very long! If you sold it to a fence, he’s going to contract a nasty disease! That’s a necromantic focus, idiot! If you can’t use magic it can give you Soul Rot!”

The addict started spraying from several places, relieving himself, foaming at the mouth and screaming, “I am a fine, upstanding citizen! Let me down!”

Aimee sighed, “Fine. Don’t want to fess up? I’ll drop you right in the puddle of filth you just made on the cobblestones.”

Loosening her magical grip she let the little thief experience freefall for just an instant and a foot, “Ah! Okay! Okay, listen, that weirdo knight guy came humpin’ out of the carriage, okay, and things was all knocked around inside and it was right at the edge where the door was open! It ain’t my fault! I saw a shiny and I took it!”

“Took it where!?” she shouted, shaking him a little in her telekinetic grip.

“Gah! Fennel’s Pawn shop! At the dead end of Northwall Alley! Now let me down!” gasped the filthy addict.

“Thank you.” said Aimee, flinging him back into the soft pile of garbage where he had previously laid. He coughed, tried to rise, and passed out as she walked away.

—

From the look of it “Northwall Alley” should have been called “Shady Lane” because it was the kind of dark and filthy that was usually filled with all kinds of monsters but, since this was the city, there was really only one kind of monster it could be.

At the end, Fennel’s Pawn was of ramshackle construction, filling the width of the alley, touching the inner wall of the city and warehouses on both sides. Walking inside it was clear that only the ceiling and front wall were built to make the pawn shop a building, its neighbors provided the rest. A ladder popping up in a corner behind the counter suggested that there was more space in a cellar. The owner’s home, perhaps?

At the counter stood a human man of yellow complexion, looking over a ledger, fussing with a rag, quill, inkwell and a black thumb tip that he seemed unable to clean. “Hello,” began Aimee, “I’m looking for something. Something I lost.”

Looking her up and down the apparent owner raised an eyebrow, seeming to approve of her in a lecherous way, “Do tell,” he said, “And what might that be, pretty lady?”

“Ha, why thank you!” she laughed, affecting pleasantries she didn’t feel, “A skull fetish. Arcane magical focus, you know, shiny, necromantic.”

The man’s smile faded, “Sorry, can’t help you with anything like that. Got a lot of dry goods, tools, some minor magical items of course but, in my location, anything too pricey on the shelves tends to disappear.

She sneered, “That’s too bad. See, if someone lacking magical ability were to handle this with his bare skin, well, the longer he did so the more likely he would be to contract a nasty disease called Soul Rot. Very quickly the diseased becomes jaundiced, then, where the fetish touches them, a blackening of the skin, maybe in just one spot, maybe all over. It just depends on what they touched it with and for how long.”

Now both his eyebrows shot up, “Doesn’t sound so bad. Like a cheap way to get a tattoo.”

“That’s just the first hours. Go to sleep, by the morning, it’s spread to cover at least the hands, assuming that’s all that touched the fetish. The skin starts to slough off and, within twenty-four hours, they’re dead, their positive life force inverted to negative. If you’re lucky your soul escapes but, with a lot of people who die of Soul Rot, they haunt their remains until their body is destroyed completely.”

“Ah,” he recoiled, “How … unpleasant.” He fiddled with the black spot on his thumb.

“What’s that on your hand?” asked Aimee.

“Just … just some ink. It won’t come off,” he scrutinized it.

“Really? Push your nail into it,” she replied.

“What? Why?” she had his attention now.

“Just do it!” she shouted, slamming her palms on the counter between them.

Compelled, perhaps by his own curiosity, he did so, and his skin cracked open! “What!? No! I felt nothing!” black ichor streamed out, then fresh blood behind it.

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“Your thumb is dying, idiot! Now give me my focus and I’ll give you the cure!” she grabbed at him, pushing his thumb closer to his eyes.

“By the gods! I … I don’t have it! There’s this client! He deals in rare magic! A specialist arcane focus like that, he took it the second I showed him!” He looked as if he might go into shock.

She shook him, “Where is he!? Don’t you get it? The reason the skull fetish is so effective is that it’s powered by a damned specter! The Soul Rot is what it does to continue its war on the living. I’m a caster, I can redirect its rage to help me cast, but your friend is in danger!”

“He’s a gangster, lady! A bigwig in Veineux’s Thieve’s guild! I tell you, I’m dead! You find him, you’re dead! Fuck! I’m dead. Dead!” He was starting to panic.

“He’ll never know it was you, Ronald,” she growled.

“How’d you know my name!?” he squealed.

“I’m magic! Also, your business license is up there, signed by the Duke! Now tell me and I’ll give you the cure!” He was sick or she might not have been able to manhandle him but, instead, the shopkeep swooned, nearly passing out.

“Okay! Okay… I … there’s this hatch I use. A cellar door, but it’s not attached to anything. There’s a plaque on top, some nonsense about how great the Duke’s grandfather is. Surrounded by tulips. You can’t tell it opens, but the plaque lifts from the bottom. Middle of the square. Please? The cure?” He gripped her wrist weakly.

“Okay, thank you. That wasn’t so hard, now was it?” Reaching into a pouch on her belt she withdrew a vial of blue liquid, “That will be one gold.”

“What? But you said–”

“I said I’d give you the cure in exchange for my fetish. You didn’t. I said I’d give it if you talked, but I sure never said it was free.” she scowled. “Maybe if you’d been upfront about it before you knew this would kill you. But you didn’t…”

“I can’t pay! I won’t!” he turned towards the hole in the floor, feinting at the ladder down.

“Very well. Off I go to the hatch…” She walked, slowly, towards the exit from the shop.

“Wait! Okay… Damn you, extorting a sick man.” reaching into a pouch of his own he withdrew a handful of gold, singled one out, and put the rest back. “Here. Now give me the cure!”

Snatching up the coin she rolled the vial to him, “Rub this into your hands. The wound should seal up right away, and the rest of your skin should lose that strong yellow color within a week.”

He was already rubbing the liquid into his hands, “Yellow?” Turning, he dug through the rubble he called backstock, found a compact mirror, and looked at his face. “What!? Ow!” he cried as his thumb tip, having rotted away, regrew in a few seconds. “What was that!?”

“Healing potion,” said Aimee with a smile, “thanks for the gold.” She turned to leave.

“That’s it!? You robbed me! A whole gold for a healing potion that size!? I could’ve bought a hundred with a gold piece!”

“Robbed?” Aimee growled, turning, “The dwarf that stole the focus from me! You bought stolen goods! I am the party wizard of Sir Joe Mulfinger! That means you stole from him! So go ahead, get the guards involved, he’ll almost surely invoke trial by combat! Do you have a dragon-strangling, human engine of destruction who will act as your champion? Because I do!”

Recoiling, the shopkeep covered his mouth. Aimee exited, confident that her bluff meant she’d never see the man again.

—

It was at this time that we met up, caught up, and stood in amazement at the events that transpired. “Well, that’s the best adventuring we’ve had so far!” I exclaimed, “I can’t remember mine before this magical pick sucked the orglespink out of me, but you guys did great!” I still had the thrill of the magical, hallucinogenic food which, I realized at this point, had disappeared. I certainly did not remember finishing it.

McGrue nodded appreciatingly, “Look at that smile. So, this orglespink stuff? It’s, uh, like … really good, huh?” he asked Aimee.

“Now’s not the time,” said Aimee, “But yes. It’s epic. You see all these elements of the overlapping planes, but if you siphon the magic off it’s like drinking a bunch of coffee but without getting crabby. None of the downside.”

“Yes!” I shouted, and my companions gestured for me to be quiet, “Yes!” I said again, but my scream was a loud whisper. “I saw that plaque and statue when I was waiting in line. Such a long wait.

Our meeting place hadn’t changed, we were still just off the square, and the festivities were winding down. “The square doesn’t look crowded anymore. Ah, I see the statue there. Grain Monger’s gone. Just a few drunks. Doubt they’ll notice anything we do.”

Moving in, the three of us looked around, apprehensively. Most of the carts were gone, though some of the out-of-towners were clearly sleeping inside of their carts and wagons and allowed to stay. “Look! Look! The crab!” I pointed, “he has two girls!? I can’t even get one! He’s sleeping with two human women draped over him. What in all the hells!?”

“Sh!” shushed Aimee. I was, apparently, loud, even whispering, “We don’t have time to go over why you’re unfuckable right now, Garbeaux. Try to focus.”

“Okay. I … I’m what now?” I blinked.

Taking up point, McGrue shiftily moved to the plaque, grabbed the bottom, and lifted the door. “Ha! Easy. It’s not even locked. They must use this passage a lot.”

“It’s pitch black. Hold on, I’ll cast a light spell.” Aimee said as she started down the stairs, but I grabbed her by the shoulder.

“Allow me,” I said, withdrawing the pick from my belt. Holding it aloft, I willed it to glow more strongly. Most magic focuses could do one thing that didn’t involve spellcasting. This was what the music store wonder told me the Pick of Air Guitar could do.

“Well, look at you!” she exclaimed, “And so confident. Maybe you’re not unfuckable after all.”

“Eh, Aimee–” began McGrue.

“I’m just teasing, Sargon,” she said, turning in her stride to face him, “No need to be j–” A dull thump was heard, McGrue and I saw, but Aimee just felt. Turning, she then saw it; a gilded coffin. “This … this isn’t a tunnel? It’s–”

“It’s a crypt. Yeah.” said an unfamiliar voice as a secret panel slid aside silently and a dark-haired, pale man stepped into the room, “So. You’re Sir Joe’s little bitch squad, huh? I ain’t impressed. ‘Course, I had to make sure you didn’t have him around first. Were you smart enough to tell him where you was goin’? Please say no…”

Aimee backpedaled, covering her mouth. This newcomer had pure black arms that disappeared up ragged, rotting sleeves, the right one, clenched, was giving off a glowing purple smoke. When he smiled, his teeth were a glistening black as well, “You! You’re the gangster who took the fetish!”

“Bought. I bought it off Ronald Fennel. Jimmy Quick, pleased to meet cha!” he walked over to the coffin, “Looks like you already met Gramps Veneux. I’m surprised you got the info out of old Ronnie-boy. Of course, he told me right away. I can’t believe that you didn’t just take the ladder down to our tunnels! I mean, come on, he had you go from the edge to the dead center of the city to find us? That’s pretty dumb.”

We looked at Aimee, “Ladder?” I asked.

Aimee blushed, “I … I didn’t see anywhere the shopkeep could sleep. I assumed he lived in a hole under his shop.”

“Sure he does! And there’s a door straight into the undercity down there. Not that knowing will do you any good now.” sneered Jimmy.

“Look, you need to give me the fetish now! Clearly, you’ve been rubbing it, like, everywhere! The Soul Rot will consume you, fast, if you don’t! Give it back now and I’ll give you the cure!” She held out her hand.

In response, he laughed, “Yeah, I had a feeling you might say that. Ronnie told me about it. Won’t work on me.”

“Do you think this is some kind of joke!?” she scoffed.

“Not at all. It’s just that Ignus and I have an understanding…” he replied, lowering his gaze, holding the fetish before him.

“The music store salesman is in cahoots with the mob!?” I exclaimed, shocked.

“What!? No!” Jimmy opened his mouth, pointing at me, stopped, then thought about it. “Oh yeah, I forgot about that guy. No, my fine tow-headed moron, I speak of course of Ignus the Black, necromancer. Before I ever touched this fancy piece of hardware I had it identified. ‘The Black Baton of Ignus’. Ignus crafted the skull fetish himself then bound himself to it so that, should he die, his soul would hide inside. Then, after recovering magic within, he’d flee back to his corpse and reanimate it as a lich. See, he wanted immortality but didn’t relish the idea of being dead. Once he was undead he could raise himself from the dead and start all over. After getting revenge on his killers, of course. Funny thing though … he was never able to get back to his body.”

We three looked at each other and I swallowed hard, “Right. Because Joe disintegrated the body…”

“What?” asked Jimmy, “Why? That’s … that’s just petty.”

Aimee grimaced, “He … well, Ignus actually managed to hurt him.”

“Yeah,” said McGrue, “And I think his exact words were ‘I haven’t broken in this Mace of Annihilation yet’. Then, y’know … he broke it in…”

“Mace of what now?” asked Jimmy, putting a hand on his hip and cocking his head.

“It’s like a vorpal sword but blunt,” said Aimee, “anything it hits it goes straight through. When Joe was done there was a crater. He swung until even the spots of blood were gone.”

Jimmy laughed, “What a sick freak. I heard he would just destroy everything around him once he got going but damn. You guys must be so glad he’s dead!”

We gasped, all together, all at once. He knew! How did he know!?

He sensed our confusion, “Ignus told me, idiots. Like you told Ronnie; there’s a specter in there. Didn’t you ever wonder whose specter it was? Did you really think I’d confront you here alone if I thought he was alive!?”

Aimee was the first to grasp just how bad the situation was, “Okay, now, listen–”

Jimmy took a step forward, pushing a finger against her lips to silence her, “No, you listen. I ain’t got no Soul Rot because Ignus and I got a plan. He gives me power, I bring him back, we rule the city. But, first, he wants a little revenge for getting ‘annihilated’, get it?”

Still a touch addled by what I’d eaten I looked back and forth between my companions, “Get what? What is there to get? Guys?”

“It means you’re screwed! Now get ready to die!” and, his face becoming a glowing skull, Jimmy Quick lunged…