Novels2Search

7. Team Building Exercise

Dalthan had been fifteen, give or take a year, when he’d pulled off his first major job. He’d spent two weeks casing the Estes estate during the day and ingratiating himself to the mansion's service staff at a local bar every night. Young Dal had spun a story of working for a different noble further up the hill and offered a commiserating ear for the Estes staff while they spent their evenings crawling into a bottle to escape the doldrum of servitude. A few coins to keep the groundskeepers and the scullery maids deep in their cups had paid dividends when he’d coaxed them into dishing out the gossip on the manor’s security crew. One of the kitchen staff was all too happy to share the sordid tale of a hired sword who’d started sheathing his weapon in the noble brats’ governess. Like clockwork, the kids would be put to bed and their minder would welcome the virile young guard into her room for a bit of private tutoring.

Armed with that knowledge, the rogue had patiently waited for a storm to blow in from the sea. With no guard to see him and the roar of thunder masking what little noise he’d made, it’d been all too easy to slip into Dominic Estes’ study and liberate a tidy sum of cash the old man had made through some of his less legitimate enterprises.

Dalthan had always considered the redistribution of wealth to be a public service, of sorts. Most of the wealth ending up in his pockets was merely a happy accident of him being the facilitator of Justice’s sharp sword. On this particular heist, the young thief’s ill-gotten gains had paid for a week’s worth of Wraithbone for ol’Sloefoot and, after a moment’s consideration, a handful of Glimmershrooms for himself. Such was his haul that even after these celebratory purchases, Dalthan ended the night with a pile of money to spare.

He’d never tried shrooms before, but that night he decided they were the sweetest tasting treat he’d ever had.

Two days later when he woke up in the park, broke and naked, with no memory of how he’d gotten there, Dalthan’s opinion of Glimmershrooms changed dramatically. Likewise, his appreciation for trees and shrubbery was significantly diminished.

That memory was playing through his mind as he pushed through the tangled undergrowth toward the road he could see in the distance.

“Let’s just get this over with,” the rogue muttered as he pushed a low-hanging limb out of his way. After he ducked past the branch, he turned and lifted a brown pouch that contained three massive beans that were the size of walnuts. “I’m not thrilled about being here either. Look around you! Do I look like I spent my life stomping through bushes and wiping my ass with potentially poisonous leaves? No. I do not. Because this,” the thief from Wavecrest waved his arms to indicate the forest around them, “is not my natural habitat.”

“The only natural habitat you have is a chamber pot.” The black-robed wizard, Zaplixel, muttered. His dry delivery earned him a snort of amusement from the woman standing beside him. Decidedly less amused, Dalthan tossed the old prick a withering scowl.

It was easy to see why the ragtag group of ruffians would be impatient with one another, and their situation. The trio of Zaplixel, Keysha, and Shale had been strong-armed by Lady Belial into accepting a mission that they didn’t ask for along with a party member they didn’t need. Dalthan, the spare party member in question, was equally unhappy and had barely read the terms of the job before a portal had activated. They’d immediately been herded through the magical threshold by a smiling [Archpriestess] that refused to take ‘no’ for an answer.

That was how they’d found themselves mucking their way through a thriving forest. With no other landmarks to go by, the party had decided to move toward a winding road a few dozen yards away.

“Yeah. The quicker we get home, the better,” Keysha, their [Human Sharpshooter] replied, ignoring the fourteenth time the two men exchanged dirty looks. The lean, athletic woman idly toyed with the drawstring of her massive bow as she turned her attention away from Dalthan to scan their surroundings. “How hard can it be to sell three magic beans?”

Shale, the [Stone Golem], remained implacably silent. As rocks are wont to do. Dalthan didn’t think it seemed particularly opposed to the idea of getting this over as quickly as possible. Then again, he wasn’t sure that Shale was opposed to much of anything. Besides erosion.

“Alright then, fearful leader,” Zap said as he crossed his arms against his chest. When his arms moved, the myriad of bracelets he wore rattled like the manacles of a forgotten prisoner. “What’s the plan?”

“The plan, dipshit, is to follow the road until we get to a village, or a town, or, Gods forbid, an actual city. If we’re lucky, we’ll meet someone long before then.” Dalthan idly tossed the bean pouch lightly in his palm while he mused aloud. “I once sold flood insurance to an old merman living at the bottom of Wavecrest’s harbor. I think I can manage to sell a few beans as long as we find someone with a pulse.”

Keysha watched the brown pouch bounce in Dalthan’s hand like a cat who’d caught sight of a twitching string. “Maybe you should let one of us hold on to that? If you lose them, we’ll be stuck here till the job’s duration runs out. I fed Fluffy before I left, but that’ll only tide her over for a couple of days.”

The rise and fall of the pouch suddenly stopped as Dal’s deft fingers snatched it out of the air. “Don’t worry, we’ll be finished in plenty of time for you to get home and feed your cat,” the rogue said idly.

The [Sharpshooter] gave him a blank look. “Fluffy isn’t a cat. She’s a 12-foot-long eldritch python that eats faeries and pleasant dreams. I have to make sure she’s fed before I go to sleep or I’ll have nightmares all night. I do not want to be searching the market ring for feeder faeries after stomping through the woods for days on end.”

Dalthan’s emerald eyes blinked twice before he could kick his stunned thoughts into a verbal response. “Every part of what you just said is fucking horrifying. What is wrong with you?”

“Listen to the con artist, Key.” The Zaplixel spoke with the tired tone of a man who’d had this same conversation many times before. “He’s obviously an idiot and even he knows a bad deal when he sees one.”

“I’m not an idiot,” Dalthan said petulantly.

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“A con artist and a whiner,” Zap amended magnanimously.

Before the rogue could formulate a suitably snarky reply, Shale stomped past on its way toward the dirt road a few yards away. Dalthan had seen enough offended women walk away from him to recognize the disgust in the golem’s stride. It was the purposeful steps of someone who thought they had better places to be. ‘Thought’ being the operative word.

Unfortunate. He’d expected a wider worldview from a creature made of sentient stone.

“Let’s get going,” Dal said as he began to carefully pick his way through the path Shale blazed through the last few yards of dense foliage.

Zap and Keysha quickly fell in line.

After a few steps in silence, the woman asked, “So what’s the actual plan? Because your plan sounds like ‘walk down the road and hope for the best.’ Which is not much of a plan. I expected more from some kind of evil mastermind.”

“I’m not an evil mastermind,” Dalthan muttered as he looked over his shoulder. Keysha returned his look with a surprised blink of her gray eyes. “There's been some kind of misunderstanding. I’m not evil. I'm just misunderstood.”

The [Sharpshooter] began to reply only to be cut off by Zaplixel.

“Why don’t we just let Key hold the first person we find at knifepoint?” The wizard mused as he stroked his chin with a set of bejeweled fingers. “Or we could have Shale squeeze their head a bit. Give them the old ‘If you know what’s good for you, you’ll buy our shit. Or else.’ It works every time.”

Dalthan scowled back at the [Swindler] as the group emerged from the underbrush. “That does not work every time. And when it goes bad, it goes really bad. We can do this easily. No threats. No violence. No evil. Just let me work my magic.”

Dal could feel Zap’s eyes rolling but he decided that the asshole’s lack of faith didn’t deserve a response. Instead, the thief moved onto the road to stand beside the golem that’d been patiently waiting for the rest of its party. The thief wasted no time, glancing first one way, then the other, before turning on a heel and marching down the center of the winding road.

“Why are we going this way?” Keysha asked, a slight tension in her voice now that they’d abandoned the tree line to move down the open road.

The rogue shrugged, replying in a casual tone, “Well, since we don’t know where we are, one direction is just as good as the other. At least this way we’ve got the sun at our backs.”

Zaplixel moved to the center of their formation as Key and Shale spread out to the sides. The bald wizard tipped his head back to glare at the glimpses of clear, blue sky that could be seen in the gaps between the branches hanging over the road. “There must be something in the air. The fucking thief is starting to make sense.”

Dalthan started to snap back with some snide remark about Zap’s age. Before he could lash out, he heard ol’Sloefoot telling him to follow rule 26 of the Thieves Handbook. Even now, years later, he could hear the old man’s raspy voice as he packed a wad of Wraithbone into his gnarled pipe. ‘People will think you’re dumb,’ he’d said. ‘Let’em. They never expect the dumb ones to slit their throat.’

The rogue took a deep breath and smiled like a preacher passing around the collection plate. Unfortunately, his warm, sunny expression wilted when he looked back and saw his companions spread out across the road like soldiers approaching a war zone.

“Can we please not look like a band of evildoers waiting for a caravan to rob?” He groaned, looking across the trio behind him. At least Keysha had the self-awareness to look embarrassed. Shale didn’t even bother slowing his heavy stride and Zap simply sneered.

“Are we not a band of evildoers?” The wizard asked with a blink of his eyes that fairly dripped faux innocence.

“Even if we are, why would you ever want to look like it?” Dalthan groaned, slapping his forehead with an open palm. “All you’ll do is scare off anyone we run into.”

No sooner did the words leave the thief’s lips than he caught sight of the glint of sunlight against metal in the distance. His steps came to an abrupt halt as he peered down the road like a hawk looking for a field mouse. Sure enough, a heartbeat later he caught sight of another flash of reflected light.

“Someone’s coming!” Dalthan hissed, his emerald eyes darting across his party members.

What he saw was Zaplixel lifting his hands and Keysha hefting her bow.

“What the fuck are you doing?” The rogue growled, waving his arms frantically to get their attention. “Go hide, you psychopaths.”

Keysha turned to him with a frown but it was Zap who responded with an indignant tone. “Why are we hiding? We never decided that you were going to be the one to make the sale.”

“You’re hiding because Shale can’t speak, Keysha doesn’t want to speak, and no one will pay attention to what you say because you look like you rob graves in your spare time.” Dalthan spat before anxiously looking over his shoulder toward the approaching figures. “Hurry the hell up and get off the road, old man!”

Zap looked to his party members for aid only to find Keysha already disappearing into the tree line and Shale moving towards it. The wizard threw his hands up in defeat as he said, “Fuck it! And fuck you. I rob corpses before they get buried.”

Dalthan watched the wizard hurriedly shuffle his scrawny ass across the road. Keysha had already vanished into the trees. That left Shale who had paused at the edge of the heavy underbrush. Dal was just about to encourage the golem to move back into the forest when the creature collapsed onto the ground in a pile of stone that was indistinguishable from a natural mound of rocks.

“Well that’s terrifying,” Dalthan muttered to himself as he turned to face the caravan that was steadily creeping toward him.

By now the rogue could see the trundling wagon in the distance being pulled by a team of four horses. Two mounted men flanked the wagon on either side. Armed with long spears, the guardsmen became clearly agitated the moment they saw the thief standing in the middle of the road. Dal had hoped that his unassuming white outfit would put them at ease, but these sellswords seemed to be too professional for that.

It was not the kind of travelers he’d been hoping to meet, but rule 6 of the Handbook said ‘The only thing that beggars get to choose is how they die.’

By the time they’d grown close enough that Dal could make out the uniform livery worn by the guards and the wagon driver, two of the foremost riders increased their speed to a trot. Quickly outdistancing the rest of their unit, the two mounted warriors closed in on Dalthan at an alarming pace, only slowing once they’d nearly put him in range of their spears.

“Step aside, peasant,” a bearded man said as he looked Dalthan’s peasant garb up and down with an unhidden sneer of disdain.

“I could do that,” Dalthan replied, a guileless smile turning his handsome features into the very picture of impending charity. When he spoke, his voice was a carefully cultivated blend of subservience and reluctant refusal. “But if I did, I’d be denying you fine gentlemen the deal of a lifetime.”