Chapter 11

Gathering Supplies

Toot looked at the flyer he had just posted in the town square. It was short and to the point and told everyone what he was looking for.

Notice

No Refuse Refusal, Inc.

Opening soon on Oleander Street where the rocky crevice used to be.

Will accept all trash that you bring in in exchange for 1 copper.

You bring the refuse and we pay you.

It must be packed, no loose garbage will be accepted.

Will accept barrels, drums, bags, and even wagonloads.

We accept everything except for bodily waste.

Will accept a Piss Pot but not the former contents.

Otherwise, no trash turned away.

Opening soon!

Toot had made the requirement for the refuse to be packaged because he didn’t want people bringing junk in by the armload. The streets could get messy if they did that and he saw no reason to make the place less livable. He and Dev were new to the town, but they intended on living there for a long time. One day, he imagined, they would be the town. Getting it cleaned up would only improve things, and people threw out the most ridiculous items. Even if all they got out of it was variations on different food meshes for Dev it would be a way for common people to get money and help the local economy. Everyone won.

He could see the mayor watching him from his office window, even though he was hiding behind a curtain. It was a humorous sight. Toot had cowed the man with barely any effort.

He had killed a man, technically, but it was self-defense and hadn’t required him to strain himself in the slightest. He was a dungeon core’s companion. They were always tougher than they looked, and he’d made certain that he was tougher than he looked when he’d designed his body. Appearing as an old man helped people underestimate him, and he hoped the guise would fool the overseers. They would be looking for a wisp or a fairy; not a wizened old bugger like him when they went looking for the dungeon.

Toot noticed a man sitting on a large cart that had two horses to pull it. He was young, late teens maybe early twenties at best. The lad was freckled, had curly strawberry blonde hair and wore a bored look on his face. Seeing an opportunity, the old man tottered to the cart.

The boy didn’t react when Toot walked up and hailed him. It appeared as though the youth actively ignored him. Toot raised his voice.

“Ho, lad! Spare me a moment?” His voice was coarse and a touch hoarse, but it resonated enough for people five buildings away to turn their necks and see what the yelling was about. The cart driver did not react. He hadn’t even flinched when Toot had yelled, and the old man began to suspect that the boy had an issue hearing.

Rather than wave his arms to get the youth’s attention, he knocked on the side of the cart firmly, but just enough to get noticed. He didn’t want to scare the boy. As he’d suspected the knocking made the boy turn his head to look at him. As soon as he saw Toot the boy shook his head and pointed to his ears and throat indicating that he could neither hear nor speak.

There were healing potions in the world, but they were expensive, and Toot doubted that the kid’s family if he had family, could afford the cost of one. It wouldn’t be cheap either, healing potions healed wounds, not congenital defects. The cost for a potion that could cure that would exceed the value of several farms. Priests could heal him, at higher levels, but the ones that would be in this town would be lesser skilled or low-level theologians. They wouldn’t carry the juice required to heal someone like the boy, and so the poor kid had grown up deaf and mute for lack of money and connections.

Toot, as the Tutor, had access to knowledge and abilities that no other dungeon companion would ever have. One of those skills was the knowledge of all languages. He had to speak everything from Wyvern’s grunts to High Orcish because a core could theoretically come from anywhere. It was his hope that the lad had a general knowledge of some signing system that he could communicate with; even singular languages within a family, including oddities such as twin speak, was known to him. Toot wiggled his fingers to indicate signing.

Catching on the boy made a fist, and then a knocking motion that Toot knew meant yes. That was all he needed.

“What is your name?” He signed.

The boy looked shocked at the fact that the old man knew how to speak his language.

“My name is, Q’uillen,” came his reply. His hands were shaking with excitement, and Toot realized the youth had probably never spoken to anyone outside of his family before.

“Hello, Q’uillen. My name is Toot.” The lad gave a silent laugh as Toot signed his name which was his fist opening up like an explosion and then him making a face like he smelled something bad. He had made the gesture before he’d realized that he was signing the word fart. He waved that away and fingerspelled it instead of trying to explain that he wasn’t named after the passing of gas.

“Nice to meet you,” the boy said wearily. “How do you know how to sign. My da made this up for us to talk.” The suspicion drained away when he had a thought that made his eyes open in surprise, “Are you deaf? Do you know my dad?”

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Toot waved the questions away and explained that he knew all sorts of languages. Q’uillen took that on faith and asked what Toot wanted.

“I want to rent your cart. I am going to do some shopping and could use your cart to carry everything I will be getting. If you are willing, I will pay you.” Toot could feel the weight of the gold he carried. His pockets were brimming, and they were not made to hold such an extreme amount of coins. He could afford to be generous. “We won’t go far, just to some shops and then to where my stores will be. No further than Oleander street. I promise.”

Toot could see the conflict on the boy’s face. The prospect of getting some money thrilled him, but he looked over his shoulder to a tavern and then up to the sun to check the time. He was waiting on somebody in the saloon.

“My dad will be looking for me in about two hours. Will you be done by then?” he kept his gestures low in fear that someone down the street might see what he was saying. “And what will you pay?”

Toot smiled. The boy’s dad was a drunkard who needed his son to drive him home after a day of drinking swill. He was going to help the kid.

“I can do everything I need to in that amount of time, but I’m afraid that all I have on me is gold pieces. What say I give you four gold pieces and one for your dad when you tell him what you did. I doubt that he will get angry at you for bringing him so much, and the other money is just because I can see you are a boy who cares about his father.” Q’uillen hadn’t looked towards the tavern in fear; he wasn’t worried about a beating. He simply didn’t want to leave his father out on the street intoxicated.

Without waiting for a response, he dug into his breeches and proffered the gold to the boy by putting them into his hand and folding his fingers over them in such a way that their denomination would not be seen. Q’uillen’s eyes grew larger than Toot would have thought possible when he saw the amount of gold that had been quietly slipped into his hand. An outsider might have thought that Toot had merely shaken the boy’s small hand and would never have known he had just handed a small fortune to him.

Toot casually strode around to the other side of the cart as Q’uillen tucked his newfound treasure into a pouch that hung around his neck. The old man climbed aboard quite spryly for one of his advanced age and sat down with about a foot’s distance between himself and the lad.

Q’uillen asked where he wanted to go first and Toot told him the general goods store. The boy gently nudged his horses ahead with his crop but didn’t beat them. All it took from him was a gentle tap on the rump and they began moving.

It was a short ride from where the cart had been to the store of general goods. Toot went inside and began to purchase one of every item in the store. Large or small he took no more than a single item. It only took him some twenty minutes, and he had everything in the cart that he wanted as well as a small bag of groceries for the boy’s family. He moved on to a tavern called the Dog’s Hair and went to leave Q’uillen to himself.

Before Toot left the seat of the driver’s seat Q’uillen put his hand out to stop him. The boy’s face was flushed with fear and concern.

He quickly signed, “Bad place, mean men. Don’t go, they’ll hurt you.”

Toot chuckled. He gave the boy a quick pat on the head and tousled his hair. He signed, “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.” Then he leapt down, foregoing the step altogether, and stepped into the building.

Toot found the establishment to be as seedy and dirty as he’d expected. The mugs were chipped and dirty; the floor was sticky and the waitresses looked to be the same way. The air smelled of stale cigar smoke, body odor, spittoon spillage, and vomit.

Well, he had wanted to experience everything. He inhaled and held the aroma. It was wonderfully horrible and as much as he wanted that stench to last forever he could stand it no longer. He let it out and unfortunately found the vile air replaced by a fresher, even more, pungent aroma. He found the bartender breathing the most disgusting breath Toot had ever smelled. Granted he hadn’t smelled a lot of people’s breath up until now, but it seemed like the barkeep enjoyed licking rotting carcasses.

“What’ll be old man?” Toot could see several blackened teeth protruding from the man’s gums like soggy asparagus.

“I would like to procure a barrel of your finest ale, mead, wine, and beer. I will take one mug, plate, fork, and spoon that is not cut from wood. Three bottles of your hardest liquors, and three of your lightest alcohols.” He saw the tapster’s face screwup in what he supposed was an insult for his forward nature and with a smile Toot added, “Please.”

“Do I look like a distributor to you, old man? Does this tavern look like a whare house?” He tried to grit his teeth in anger but then winced in pain from their poor condition. This seemed to make him even madder, “I sell hard drinks to men that want to get pissed quickly and cheaply.” He slammed a bottle on the counter and a small glass right beside it. “Drink or get pished. The door is that way. As he said that he jammed a finger into Toot’s chest.

The finger bent at an angle it was not meant to and behaved in a manner a finger that was just poked full force into a brick wall. The bartender acted like a man who nearly had his finger broken finger on an old man’s chest. Before he could withdraw his hand Toot’s arm flashed upwards, and his fingers clamped on the bartender’s wrist.

“Don’t poke me,” Toot said, “You really shouldn’t poke me.” He gave the man’s wrist a sharp enough twist that his legs buckled from the pain. The only thing keeping the barkeep from hitting the floor was Toot’s grip and the bar counter that he was leaning on. The was the sound of some chairs and stools sliding as the taverner’s friends considered helping him, but Toot held up a solitary finger and waggled it at them. He didn’t even turn around. There was some grumbling but the few patrons of the establishment quickly returned to their drinks with any thoughts of helping their friend forgotten.

“Now,” Toot said genially, I would like a barrel of your finest ale, mead, wine, and beer. I will take one mug, plate, fork, and spoon that is not cut from wood. Three bottles of your hardest liquors, and three of your lightest alcohols.” He knew the quality of the alcohol in such a place as this one was going to be about three steps below middling, but he still wanted to get Dev the bad stuff, just for comparison’s sake. He would go to the other tavern later and get a higher quality drink after Q’uillen and his father had gone home.

At the bartender’s nod Toot released his hold and the man hit the floor, not with a thud but more of a splish. Toot leaned over and peered over the counter. He saw the man writhing on the floor as he held his rapidly bruising wrist.

“I’ll be in the cart out front. I’ll give you five minutes to have it all loaded for me before I come back. If I come back I won’t treat you so nicely.” His eyes squinted, “I don’t like being poked.”

Four minutes later the cart had been loaded and Toot had paid his fees minus the tip he would have given if the man behind the bar hadn’t irritated him so much. The old man stood on the wooden walkway outside, rubbing his back against a post. His back had been itching for several minutes and this was the only way he found that could satiate the irritation short of asking someone to scratch his back for him.

He wanted to get to a place that sold gear, one that sold clothing, and one that sold footwear before he headed back to the crevice but before any of that he saw a book store. He signed to Q’uillen for him to wait where he was, and then looked at the men loading the last barrel onto the wagon.

“I’ll be back shortly. If anything happens to that wagon, my merchandise, or that boy I will come back inside. I promise you if I have to go back into that shite hole” he said with a throaty growl, “That I will be the only one who comes back out.”