The Hub’s sixth tier housed more citizens than all the other tiers combined. The entire floor was exclusively filled with economically sized apartments cut directly into the city’s bedrock. A few of these apartments held enchantments that expanded the space inside into luxurious mansions, but most were spartan, single room living quarters. Since a large portion of the Hub’s population spent the bulk of their time traveling the multiverse at Balerik’s behest, the arrangements were more than adequate for the city’s large adventuring class.
One member of the adventurer demographic was a certain [Human Sharpshooter] named Keysha Naiko. She’d recently returned from a very unsatisfying trip that’d paid little and entertained her even less. If she and Zaplixel hadn’t raided a farmstead full of bumpkins at the end, it would have gone down as one of the worst chores she’d ever been part of.
It’d been a disaster of a trip. And that was before she considered the fucking [Rogue] that’d strutted around like he was Balerik’s gift to the cosmos. He was easy enough on the eyes that she’d briefly considered taking him for a tumble, but the man’s putrid personality had quickly dispelled those thoughts.
If his self-absorbed nature hadn't been enough to turn her off, the way their time together had ended, with him holding her at knifepoint while using her as a human shield, certainly would have doused any lingering flames of desire. Keysha wasn’t exactly a romantic, but even her sensibilities balked at cultivating a relationship with a man that would offer her up as target practice for an evil sorcerer. So, once they’d returned to the Hub, they’d parted ways. She did try to ensure that they separated on more or less amicable terms.
Amicable enough to avoid further bloodshed. Not amicable enough to bring him home.
Dirty and frustrated, Keysha had stalked through the city like a lion with a thorn in her paw. She stopped by her favorite pet store and picked out a plump green fairy for Fluffy. Though its pleas for release did lift her spirits on the way home, it wasn’t until she’d enjoyed a long, soothing soak in the tub that she felt she’d truly put the ridiculous events of the day behind her.
Now, after emerging from the bath and making herself comfortable, her lips were stained red by the dread fruit wine she’d been drinking. The smile on her face looked like a slash of fresh blood drawn across her tanned skin.
“I’m not interested,” the woman said simply. She was lounging indolently across the couch of her living room dressed only in her griffin fur robe. She’d killed it herself. And the knight that’d been riding on it. It was only fitting that she’d taken the mount’s hide as a trophy. “Just relax. It’ll all be over in a few minutes.”
The [Sharpshooter] raised her wine glass to her lips as she watched the fairy dart across Fluffy’s terrarium like a confused hummingbird. Trundling along behind it at a comparatively sedate pace was an eldritch python. The sinister snake seemed to be in no hurry, taking its time as it slithered through the air as easily as an eel gliding through the water. The snake, it seemed, already knew how this dance would end.
So did the fairy locked in its cage.
“What about fairy dust?” The vibrant green fairy’s voice was shrill, grating on her nerves even worse than Zaplixel’s. “I can get you an ounce a week! Free of charge!”
The tiny flying creature glanced over its shoulder, realizing too late that Fluffy was near enough to strike with the flick of its forked tongue. The contact was like a bullwhip lashing across the fairy’s back, sending it careening through the air. The fairy struck the terrarium’s clear mesh wall hard enough that Keysha could hear the dull thump of its crash.
The woman’s smile grew broader as she watched the dazed fairy wobble drunkenly as it fought to remain airborne. “My body is a temple,” she informed the doomed creature. “There’s no room for drugs in a place of worship.”
The fairy shrieked as it bobbed and weaved through the air to avoid being encircled by the eldritch python. “What the hell do you think alcohol is, lady?!”
Keysha pointedly took a long sip from her wineglass, watching the fairy zip from one side of Fluffy’s cage to the other. “Have you ever seen a temple that didn’t run on booze?”
The [Sharpshooter] nestled deeper into her robe, sharp eyes twinkling with simmering malevolence. It wouldn’t be long now. She could tell that the fairy was tiring. Its wingbeats had been the blur of a bumble bee when she’d first tossed it in Fluffy’s habitat. Now, after running from the python and suffering more than one lash of its tongue, the battered and bruised fairy could barely keep itself aloft.
Fluffy seemed to sense the vulnerability of its prey. Its lazy, almost lethargic movement began to quicken, rapidly working to box the fairy in. The tired fairy found it even harder to escape the ever-tightening coils of the eldritch python, suffering the battering attack of the snake’s tongue each time it managed to barely evade entrapment.
One strike, either through luck or precision, landed heavily against the fairy’s head. The creature dropped like a stone, barely managing to slow its descent with a quick fan of its jade-colored wings. It still hit the ground with a solid thump, only rising shakily to its feet again after Fluffy had encircled it within a fence of amethyst scales.
Wine sloshing from her carelessly handled glass, Keysha leaned forward excitedly to watch the fairy’s final moments.
That’s when she heard a firm knock at her door.
The woman’s dark brows furrowed, her gaze cutting to the door and then back to Fluffy. The snake had managed to loop a second coil around the weakly struggling fairy.
“I didn’t order any food!” Keysha’s shout echoed through the small apartment as she turned from the door to the unfolding drama in Fluffy’s terrarium. “You want the troll upstairs! 3C! This is 2C!”
To Key’s surprise, and mild horror, the voice that replied was all too familiar.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“It’s me, Key,” replied the high, whiny tone that could only belong to the [Swindler] she’d worked with several times. Including the disaster that was the chore they’d tackled today. She didn’t have anything against the oily mage, but she didn’t exactly yearn for his presence during her personal time either.
“Zaplixel? What the fuck do you want?” Keysha’s lips curled into an irritated frown as her attention turned fully to the locked door across the room.
“Why don’t you let me in, so I don’t have to talk through this damn door?” The mage’s curt response drew a groan of exasperation from Keysha.
“No!” Keysha shouted vehemently as she turned her gaze back to the fairy struggling against the tightening grip of the eldritch python. “You were going to lightning bolt me, Zap. Me! Get the fuck out of here.”
“You’d have survived it, Key.” Zap’s wheedling tone wiggled through the door like worms burrowing into a fresh grave. “It was that little shit's fault anyway. He was the one holding a knife to your neck!”
Tearing her gaze away from the fairy’s last gasp, Keysha shouted, "Come back lat-” With her eyes focused on the closed door, she didn’t see the results of Fluffy’s chase, but she heard the unmistakable sound of the result. Like brittle twigs being snapped for tinder, the sound of the noisy fairy’s bones breaking filled the apartment with a sudden crunch of finality.
Keysha immediately launched her half-full wine glass across the room where it shattered against the door.
“You fucking asshole!” Keysha leaped to her feet and stormed across the room, shouting with all the fury of a vengeful goddess. “The one good thing that happened today and you just had to ruin it.” The woman’s long stride crossed the room in a flash. Once there, she unlatched the door and threw it open. She’d expected to see Zaplixel, but she hadn’t expected to see the look of surprise written across his weathered face.
“What do you want, Zaplixel?,” Keysha seethed.
The older wizard pointedly let his eyes drift from her face, down to her toes, and then back up again.
“You can start by closing your robe,” the mage said, a lopsided smile twisting his lips. “I just left Polly’s so I’m not really in the mood.”
Keysha immediately began cinching the belt of her robe, glaring daggers at Zap all the while.
The wizard coughed awkwardly as he turned to look down the hall outside Keysha’s apartment. “You know,” the [Swindler] began, “with you growing up in the forest, I’d have thought you’d be all-natural. I’m surprised that you sha-”
“Finish that sentence and I’ll slice off something that you’ll miss far more than a finger, old man.” Keysha stepped back into her apartment, making room for Zaplixel to enter. “If you showed up here to discuss my grooming habits, you’re about to be sorely disappointed.”
Not waiting for any further invitation, Zap brushed past the [Sharpshooter] and into her sparsely decorated apartment. Aside from the couch she’d recently vacated and Fluffy’s terrarium, the room held only a small table beside the couch and Keysha’s massive bow. The weapon leaned against the far wall where it’d been left beside the magical quiver that held Key’s ammunition. There was no kitchen or food storage because most of the Hubs citizens either didn’t eat at all or ate far more than could be kept on hand in such a small apartment. A short hallway led to the equally unadorned bedroom, though it held the home’s only amenity.
An ever-emptying chamber pot.
There has been much discussion throughout the years as to where, exactly, the chamber pots eject their contents. An intrepid [Red Cap Brownie] once climbed into a chamber pot to solve the mystery.
He was never heard from again.
“So what’s all this?” Zaplixel made a sweeping gesture toward the table and the half-empty bottle of dread fruit wine atop it. “Are you celebrating my loss of a finger?”
Keysha tugged the door shut and then brushed past Zap to tumble onto the couch. “No, you dick. I was watching Fluffy hunt.”
Zap eyed the eldritch python critically, paying special attention to a suspiciously large bulge working its way down the snake’s body. “That horror doesn’t hunt. It bullies things into submission and then consumes their despair. I think it just eats the bodies because you taught it to.” The wizard glanced around the small room and found no chairs save the couch that Keysha was sprawled out across.
"It's a pain in the ass to clean up crushed fairy goop," Keysha said defensively.
“Can I sit?,” Zaplixel asked in a tired voice.
“No,” came the [Sharpshooter]’s cutting reply.
Zap heaved an explosive sigh that sent the necklaces he wore tinkling against one another with the sudden motion of his chest. “Fine, Key. This shouldn’t take long.”
The wizard began dry washing his hands, paying special attention to the smooth knuckle where his left ring finger had been earlier today. “It’s about that fucker Dalthan. Apparently, the higher-ups want us to go on another chore with him.”
Keysha’s dark brows rose as she sat up, suddenly watching Zaplixel with the intensity of a fox eyeing an oblivious chicken. “Why would we do that?”
Zap’s gaunt shoulders lifted in a tired shrug. “I don’t know, Key. They said something about the kid needing familiar faces. But this is the clergy we’re talking about. It could be anything. They’re also sending that nymph he met outside the mausoleum with him as a private tutor to explain the system.”
Keysha reeled back, “You’re shitting me. Is he fucking that Belial girl? Is that why he’s getting preferential treatment?”
Zap’s shoulders lifted in another shrug. “I don’t have any idea, Key. But that’s not the important part.” A crooked smile tugged at the corner of the [Swindler]’s lips that gave the older man a sinister air. “The important thing is that we’re going to be out in the wild with the little shit again and this time we know it.”
Realization dawned on Keysha’s face like the sun banishing the darkness of a terrible night. “You want to kill him,” she murmured.
“I want to make the pretty boy suffer,” Zap said with a malicious grin.
“He is pretty,” Key conceded with a wistful smile.
Zap’s grin quickly twisted into a scowl. “Not relevant,” he snapped.
“Fine, fine,” Keysha said, waving away his anger with a flip of her wrist. “Are you sure it’s a good idea to knock off some guy that the bigwigs have their eye on?”
“We can’t be held accountable for his idiocy.” Zap dry-washed his hands again, his fingers massaging the empty knuckle where his absent finger once was. “I’ve got a plan.”
“I am a sucker for evil schemes,” Keysha said as she scooted down the couch to make room for the [Swindler]. As she moved, she reached out to grab the wine bottle. “The asshole deserves it. He spent the entire time talking about how much better he is than the rest of us. As if he were actually a good guy.” Key sneered as she took a long pull from the bottle before passing it to Zaplixel. “The asshole talks like he's some kind of fucking angel or something.”
“And that,” Zap said with a snap of his fingers, “is how we’re going to kill Dalthan Sol’Magor.”