Her glowering glare stared at the entrance to the cave, the unworked stone unfazed by her perpetual foul mood. Soon the little henchman would return to report. Soon she would be toyed with by her captor. Chained as she was, arms outstretched with her neck lashed such that she was forced to her knees in a compromising position, she could do naught but watch and wait. No entertainment could sate her rage, not that any such niceties would be extended to her, for her host and captor was anything but gracious.
No, he was a vile being, conceited and absorbed only with his own glory. She remained ignorant of the deal that found herself in his possession, but of all her many captors, he remained the most detestable. First there had been the hunters that laid her low, cast her down from the sky to pin her to the earth. Then there had been the merchants, eager to anoint their altar of avarice with her acquisition. From there, she found herself as a trophy for many a lord and lady, changing hands with all the concern of farmers selling cattle at the market. Her current lord would be ill-inclined to part with her, for he treasured her greatly as a centerpiece for his hoard.
“Come now, my little Princess,” commanded her captor as his body shifted in her direction. Gold coins slid down the pile as his crimson-scaled body scattered some of his hoard. A coy smile revealed the fangs hidden behind it as he sweetly whispered to her. “You have but to swear fealty to me, submit to my will, and you will be free once more.”
The same promise, the same offer to sup from the poisoned chalice that traded one imprisonment for another. Undaunted, her expression remained uninviting. She neither recoiled in disgust nor unveiled any more hostility than normal.
“You remain silent as usual, I see,” continued her captor in response to her passive silence. “A predictable outcome. Why, many are stricken mute by my mere presence and majesty.” He placed one clawed hand on his chest while he spread his wings wide, posing for his unappreciative and captive audience. “I would have thought you would have grown accustomed to me by now, but such is my brilliance and radiance that even you can find no words to express your devotion to me.”
His words sought to rattle her, to tug her proverbial chain when literal ones were more readily available. Were they not blocking her Abilities, she would crush him beneath the tidal waves of her fury and the ocean of mana and training that stubbornly remained just out of reach in a most tantalizing fashion.
He himself had ample awareness of her Abilities and dared not touch her directly lest he somehow free her from her constraints. Unperturbed by the chase, he slid down his pile of gold, which honestly was noticeably smaller than his own body, to position himself in a more revealing pose on his side facing her.
For her part, she did not avert her gaze, but continued to show the same level of scorn as usual. The slow dripping of water in the background punctuated his failure to seduce her once again, but he remained undaunted. Few good things in life were easily acquired, and he would pursue his quarry until her legs tired from the chase and she bent the knee to him.
“My Lord Count Vladislav, I, Gambino, your humble servant, come bearing news of your glorious enterprise.”
Annoyed, the dragon rolled his eyes as he rotated over to sit upright and facing his minion.
“Ah, Gambino, I have been expecting your report. Speak.”
From where she remained stuck fast to the earth by her bindings, she could see the kobold who knelt in submission. This time he dressed himself in a sharp pinstriped suit, complete with a fedora and a carefully-folded handkerchief in his pocket. Last time he had a black leather jacket and a ridiculous haircut the likes she had not seen before.
“Your supreme vision has borne fruit. Many lesser beings have found themselves enraptured by your superior product. Dragon’s Kiss has taken the market by storm, and many more yet crave a taste of the bounty you have to offer. Much wealth has been amassed, and a delivery of your rightful fortune will be shipped to you on the morrow.”
The kobold remained kneeling for the duration of his report, his hand holding his hat over his chest while his eyes remained fixed on the floor in front of him. She held no disdain for the little kobold. It was questionable if they even had free will, for they were creatures devoid of morality, instead loyally if not oddly serving whoever they saw as the strongest. If only she could slip her chains, they would submit to her strength, but she focused on calming her mounting rage, disciplining her emotions as she watched the scene play out.
“You have served me well, Gambino. I offer… recognition, for your efforts,” replied the loathsome dragon in front of her.
“Your words are too kind, but there have been a few setbacks, one of note.”
“Oh, do tell,” encouraged the Count with a mix of curiosity and ire as he idly flashed the claws of one hand as if to inspect them.
Gambino swallowed nervously before continuing. “We had an altercation between clients. The broker double-booked us, which is such an unprecedented mistake that it could not have been an accident. The second group of clients, a bunch of rowdy dwarven miners, seemed to be itching for a fight. They lost the fight to a henchman of one Alterez, a goblin cook of some note.”
“A most interesting development,” responded the Baron through clenched teeth as his claws raked a tremendous gouge in the stone floor before him. “Tell me, why do you think this happened?”
She looked on, interest piqued in this new development. The little kobold trembled before the ire and focus of his master as he thought up a response.
“Oh mighty one, this one knows not for certain. I suspect someone paid the broker a great deal to breach the sanctity of his contract and to tarnish his own reputation. I believe that the goblin, Alterez, was not the reason, but his bodyguard, the up and coming Adventurer who had been a mighty champion of the recent war between Berkerin and the Theocracy of Ulsfarh over a year ago.”
“Tell me everything,” demanded the Count as he took a step forward and lowered his head to be directly in front of the kobold.
The kobold spoke, and with rapt attention, she listened. Perhaps the winds of change and fortune would both blow in her favor once more. She would not miss the opportunity, and so, she planned and waited as words were exchanged between master and servant.
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“Bambina, toots, get ova’ here,” shouted Gambino after he left The Master’s lair.
He had just finished another star performance. Earlier had been the drug deal, where the opposition bought the craven nature of his crew, hook, line, and sinker. Then The Master had believed him terrified as he gave his report to said master. It really did help to have a Skill to tremble on demand.
“Proceeding,” Bambina replied as she scurried over.
“Doll, you did great out there. You really sold that incompetence to those clowns about how you messed up with the booking,” Gambino praised as he drew her in and wiped away some of the grime on her face. “Could never have pulled it off had you not scouted the broker and perused his appointment book.”
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Bambina preened at the praise as Gambino tenderly caressed the side of her face with his hand. Gambino savored the moment, letting it sink into both of them as a core memory.
“The boss has a new job for us, see. Go recast yourself, and this time, use your pretty scales and get yourself all dolled up. The whole world should get to see how you shine.”
Bambina blushed at the praise, her blue tongue flicking down over her bottom lip in an overt sign of attraction. Gambino drew her in closer, a finger and thumb gripping her chin as he brought his face closer to hers. With a quick peck, his own blue tongue dabbed her on the forehead in a show of affection. Gambino then spun her around and swatted her playfully on the behind to get her in motion.
Bambina paused at the door and turned back to Gambino.
“What about the delivery of The Master’s gold?”
“Fuhgeddaboudit. We have a new job. Prepare for the next act and we shall rehearse our next scenes.”
Gambino smiled to himself as Bambina nodded in acquiescence and scampered off to change. He found her to be a good girl, eager to please and exceptionally easy on the eyes. She has talent, and with his help, the whole world would know that she is a star. Too bad the other two were not so helpful. They only had [Background Character] Blessings. Useful in supporting roles, but not capable of doing much on their own. They couldn’t hold a candle to his own Blessing of [Impresario], but it was not so much from skill as luck that the gods had chosen him to be the troupe leader. He hoped he could live up to the responsibility.
Gambino’s smile wilted into a frown as he reminisced. His troupe had been larger once, and the others had played their final act with poise and dignity as they died in droves. Six of them had escaped, with two more succumbing to cruel twists of fate along their exodus. But the man had promised them that things would be on the up and up if they took this new temporary job. They just had to play their parts, as normal, and soon they would find themselves on the grand stage once again.
The man was an oddball, but yet so entirely familiar to Gambino that he felt that he had known the man his whole life. Doubtful, as he had never seen the man before and kobolds and humans were not known for cohabitating in the same area. Plus the weird triangle symbol would have been memorable. But he trusted in the man’s words, despite any evidence to support it, and so now the hour drew near to see if it would all play out as the man said it would.
Gambino made his way through the cave system, going to a deadend that had a crude wooden wall and door installed. Removing a key from his pocket, he opened the door and stepped inside the small alcove sequestered away from everything else. All that remained of his clan’s treasures were found here. Some were mere props, others the real deal, and for this scene, he would need some serious hardware.
He opened a sturdy foot locker, and within, drew out a fine leather suitcase. Opening it, he drew out the exact item he needed to provide the desired utility for his upcoming scenes and to really bring the aesthetics of his character to light. He checked it over, ensuring that the parts were clean and undamaged. A few spare cylinders were in the suitcase, and he grabbed those too and added them to his pockets. Despite the losses of late, the show must go on. It would be one damn fine show, one that would see his troupe go down in a blaze of glory or commissioned by a new and powerful patron. With what he needed in hand, he left the room, locking up as he left, and returned to the rest of his troupe.
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Nabonidus gazed vacantly out at the stretch of wasteland to the north, a gentle breeze playfully tugging at the drool oozing down one corner of his mouth. Nabonidus had been sitting in his spot just behind his tent since sunrise, doing nothing, thinking nothing. At least, that is what he wanted the others to believe.
Three days had passed since he came into existence. There was no birth, no parents, no preamble to his spawning; he simply was not and then was, fully formed with sufficient knowledge to understand the world around him. The first day offered him no time to think, to organize his thoughts and knowledge into any useful frame of reference. The biggest and meanest of his kind had ordered an attack on an approaching caravan, and not knowing enough to find a way out of it, he joined the others for an assault.
Two others from the tent across from him had joined the raid, the ones with nasty scars from acid on their faces and chests. While the raid had been successful, those two had perished. Nabonidus watched that evening and noticed none coming or going from the tent of those two, but come morning, two new hale and hearty ogres had stepped out of that tent, seemingly springing forth from the nether, their eyes betraying no hint of intelligence beyond what one needed to smash and consume.
But Nabonidus himself possessed intelligence far beyond such banal undertakings. He had never studied, nor read books, nor experimented with the world around him, but he knew things beyond base instinct. Not just facts about the world and life, but of things that would come to pass.
No, he did not simply know about the future as if someone had told him about it, he had in a sense, lived it. He was there, watching, listening, feeling, while two dragons fought to the death while yet more dragons fought other creatures. The Actors were all cast; that part of Destiny had been decided, unchangeable lest one with foresight intervene. The Outcome remained inconclusive but heavily in favor of the dragon seen in all his visions of what was yet to come. The others with him though, sometimes they perished based on what choices they made.
Nabonidus reached out with his gift, with his Blessing, and tugged at the strings of Fate to favor the dragon that showed up time after time in future after future. Something about him seemed all too familiar, yet they had never met as far as he knew. But the dragon was so far away, across the wasteland, beyond plains, forests, mountains, and other lands he had never heard of or been to. His grip on those strings remained weak with him being so far from the Scene, and come the moment of Fate being decided, he would need to exert his influence just right to ensure the optimal Outcome.
His instincts screamed at him to be cautious. All the rabble of the camp went about their lives as brutish oafs with violence and shouting as their primary mediums of communication and interaction with the world. However, if he himself possessed intellect beyond that of a savage, then surely others did as well. And if his instincts told him to hide himself, to play dumb and mask his gifts, so too would the instincts of the others. For if he saw one of them acting wiser than the rest, he would surely and surreptitiously move to kill them lest they plot and scheme against him. Turnabout being fair play, he kept his actions covert.
But if he himself was an [Oracle], then perhaps others were as well. He had no reason to believe he was unique, or that other [Oracles] would not move against him and the future he sought to bring about. Everything hinged on the dragon, and with that, the fates of the other ogres would be dire. Only Nabonidus would stand to gain from this future, and with some of the others surely having weeks or months of a head start at life and mastering their Blessings, he would be at a disadvantage if they knew of his goals.
Many grim futures awaited him. The only bright futures involved the dragon, but they became hazy and confusing the further in the future the chain of events went from the upcoming fight. In the best versions of the future he wanted, the dragon came from the north, its body a great serpent devouring a path in the land towards him, the dragon’s companions walking along his back. Along the path came an endless tide of wagons full of bone, each one heading further south from Nabonidus’s own camp.
To the south, Nabonidus saw only darkness and chaos. The future there was too distant to see clearly and too horrible to comprehend. Profound calamity and chaos reigned there. He saw large titans brought low, swarmed by endless hosts of unspeakable horrors that defied his ability to categorize as any manner of creature he knew. Countless futures clashed, and doing more than glimpsing at it would find himself lost in the endless tides of the future as waves of insight propagated back to him. Such folly led only to madness, and being so young and new to his Blessing, Nabonidus knew he did not have the skill to navigate such dark waters.
And so he focused on what was to come, how to help this dragon that somehow had Destiny entangled with a lowly ogre in the middle of nowhere. He planned and schemed, hatched plots and contingencies of how he may discover the others like him without exposing himself. The best time to get a knife to the back would be when he planted his own knife in someone else’s back. Best that he find a way to have them all knife each other, that he may reign supreme on a mountain of corpses. Not that he wanted to lead the ogres, for no future involved them. No, instead his ambition could be summarized in a single word: survive.
And survive he would, even if he had to murder, cheat, and steal to do so. While knowledge was his birthright, so to speak, morality remained a luxury of civilization. And this deep in the forsaken wilderness, civility had become a sparse commodity. His thinking done, Nabonidus grabbed his club and headed back to the camp before anyone could grow suspicious. He would survive his fourth day of existence, and then those that yet remained, until his foresight failed to find a way forward.