Chapter 12: Guild

Waterdeep seemed to collect stupidity. It floated in like jetsam from the sea, or oozed in from the surrounding countryside until it became an entire melting pot of bad decisions. Aestith did not believe he was the sole intelligent one in a flood of idiocy or that he was immune to these bad decisions; to the contrary, in fact—or else why would he be there?

Aestith was at first shocked by the easy diversity of the city, then quickly relaxed as he realized that things were, well, not so dissimilar from what he was accustomed to. The elite nobles and the wealthy, many of which were both, still held the most power and segregated themselves from the common rabble in different districts. The poor were still shoved to the outskirts. With a cloak, Aestith got around the city, all too quickly gathering that he needed a job to be here, before they ultimately arrested him on “suspicious behavior”. Or, rather, for being a drow.

Some inquiries and searching led him to the docks district, and ultimately, signing on with a guild. He signed on a day of utter rain, and he was not looking forward to having to dip into his quickly depleting funds to cover another night in an inn—he strongly suspected that he had to pay exorbitant overhead fees compared to others. Guild 534 would take just about anyone, including a drow of questionable origin. The guild supplied beds, even for new members, though, which was a blessing that night. He stayed for only a handful of days before he found precisely what he was looking for. He scouted out routes, moved things around, until it was exactly as he wished it; not difficult to access exactly, but inconvenient. The old crates around the alley to the warehouse basement had already cluttered the alley, and by the look of things, had been there for some time. He spent days carefully moving them around to obscure the alley, and particularly the door to the basement. 

The warehouse hunched on the site of what used to be some large house that had since been demolished. Its cellar was left intact with a rusted chain to hold the old doors shut. Aestith thought it would have been difficult to open even with the key. He had half-expected to find that the steps had rotted to nothing, and was pleasantly surprised to find that they had not entirely gone. He carefully and strategically replaced them. He preferred that the first step creaked loudly, and skipped it on the way down himself. The last step placed him on a stone slab. The entire thing may have been slate once, but someone of lesser means than the original builder had done repairs with clay brick until it was an uneven mismash. The table was the hardest thing to move into the cellar, but he managed it by throwing it into a wheelbarrow and maneuvering it down the stairs with a pulley. He salvaged a chair from an alley. When that was finished, he made small purchases.

He needed a censor, a brazier, coal. And glass—he needed glass instruments. He was able to afford only some rudimentary varieties of impure glass, but it would do. He started by collecting the spores from the dried mushrooms. That took a fair amount of time, mostly consumed by waiting. He wasn’t sure if it would work, so far from the faerzress, but he wanted to try it.

He passed the time by signing up for a job here and there at the guild. These jobs were primarily fetching something lost or stolen, hunting creatures, killing kobolds and goblins, or something of that nature—nothing really worth doing, but the money bought him more supplies and better equipment.

He started cultivating spiders too, because he liked them mostly. It gave him something to do when there was nothing better to occupy his time. Plus they kept the pests down.

He was delighted when the mushroom spores could be harvested, and proud of himself when he was able to start growing them in a small trunk. While they were growing, he wondered what the best way to distribute it was. The drugs were illegal here.

He had planned to distill the mushroom oil already—perhaps he could put it in something? Who did he want to distribute to? Making the drugs wasn’t the hard part, he decided; it was finding a consumer.

He wasn’t as interested in money as he was information, and loyalty. An idea trickled at the back of his mind. He kept it in mind as he headed toward the guildhall—a dingy place with a sad sign out front. Douglas manned his desk like a turret. The man would let anyone join so long as they paid their dues, which were low, but he still watched Aestith.

There hadn’t been any work available that especially interested Aestith, not since the bit with the lizard wrangling. That had gone rather well, all things considered, but he hated kobolds and after that, didn’t like lizards so much either.

Wiltorin bickered with Brass Monkey about what job they should take. Aestith glanced at the job board, surprised to find any at all that interested him. Eilora sat at a table, feeding something to her badger. The wood elf occasionally voiced an opinion, but despite that she was generally the oldest in the room at 111, she was usually apathetic. Neither he nor Eilora would ever like one another; they held a strained tolerance for one another and to keep a relative peace, never addressed why.

Aestith frowned and walked over to them. “Where are you going?”

The half-elf broke her discussion with Monkey and glanced at him. “I want to help Goodwoman Sylvia.”

He wrinkled his nose. “That job hardly pays at all!”

“That’s what I said!” the human ruffian agreed. Aestith had no idea if “Brass Monkey” were the man’s real name or some sort of title.

The group broke out in more bickering. Aestith listened as it went back and forth for a while then he yelled, “Stop! You’re not getting anywhere. Is anyone familiar with tiered voting? Everyone gets two votes. We’ll eliminate the least popular one, then vote again and pick only one. All right?”

The vote was tied perfectly between a charity case involving a missing child, and cleaning up the mansion of some wizard fratboy named Lance—because it paid well.

“—All I’m saying is, we’re not a cleaning service,” Wiltorin continued.

“It’s probably a magical nature,” Aestith mused. He glanced at Monkey. “And maybe there’s something to steal while we’re there?” The second part he said with his voice low. Monkey brightened.

“Look, we can at least ask about the missing kid. His mother is in the docks anyway, right? He’s probably just lost somewhere.”

“Why would anyone care about a damned boy? He’s probably already been murdered,” Aestith muttered.

“All the more reason we should go!”

They bickered for a time, and Aestith complained. They threatened to leave him until he reminded them he was the only one who could heal. His brow creased in thought. They needed him. He laced his fingers together. “All right. I agree to help. However, in the event that the boy was kidnapped, I’d like to sacrifice the kidnapper to Lolth.”

The others fell silent. Slowly, all eyes turned toward the half-elf paladin. Wiltorin fumed and fussed then threw up her hands. “You know what? In that incredibly unlikely scenario, sure. Sacrifice away.”

Aestith smiled. “Excellent. Lead the way.”

He plodded behind the others as they took a mostly straightforward course to the tavern that Sylvia worked at. The woman was haggard, but doing her best to be cheerful as she worked. Aestith was unsurprised, though disgusted, when she burst into tears at the merest mention that they were looking for her son. Monkey used the opportunity to take advantage of the grieving woman and offer to comfort her in a manner that was oddly suggestive. Why weren’t these surface people more straightforward with their ambitions? A male should be more submissive too. The cultural differences could be confusing.

Eilora showed her pet a child-sized shirt that the boy’s mother kept in a large apron pocket. It was damp with the human’s tears. Monkey had to be pulled away as they headed back toward the street Sylvia had last seen her son. They discussed the few leads they had, such as querying the neighbors or any friends he might have had. Such a plan was laid to waste, however, when the badger sniffed the air on the street, snuffling madly at the pockmarked gutters. It growled and pawed at the manhole cover. They let out a collective groan.

“Eilora, are you sure?” Wiltorin complained.

The wood elf looked at the badger, at the sewer opening, then patted her pet’s head. “Yeah. I’m sure he’s down there.”

“That’s disgusting. He’s probably dead,” Aestith muttered.

“Think of it like a cave,” Monkey said. He and the half-elf paladin worked at lifting the manhole cover.

“We can at least look,” the half-elf insisted.

The smell from the sewers would have made a ghoul look up from a dead rothé. “Do you know what the Waterdavian sewers are like?” Aestith complained.

“No.”

“Neither do I! And I’d prefer to keep it that way.” Nevertheless, he reluctantly climbed down the ladder. Monkey swung onto the ladder behind him and closed the cover. There was some complaining, a few stepped on toes, more complaints about the smell. Aestith rolled his eyes. The badger sniffed like a bloodhound and they were fast after it. 

Aestith stared down the stinking corridor and whispered in Elvish, “Test me, Lolth.”

Monkey’s eyes lingered on a door on the other side of the foul water.

“Hold up,” he called. Aestith waited on the corner, glancing down the passage at the rest of the group. They halted.

“Come on, we don’t have time for this,” Wiltorin complained.

Aestith began to reply, but a scream from Eilora stopped him. Something bright and warm emerged from the cold gray of the sewer water. Massive jaws clamped around the badger. He had assumed that the rumors of alligators down here was a myth, but myths typically didn’t attack badgers.

Aestith swore, reaching for his crossbow. The badger hissed and spat. Eilora fumbled for her bow and the half-elf shoved in front of her. Wiltorin bashed the alligator in the snout. It lost its grip on the badger and it dropped in a bloody heap of fur.

“Cakecake!” Eilora cried. 

What a stupid name, Aestith thought. He aimed, but he couldn’t get a clear shot of the creature with Eilora and Wiltorin in the way. He aimed to the side, at the body still hidden under the water. He had no idea if it hit or not. Monkey finally looked up from his lockpicking. He stared longingly at the door and its hidden mysteries, and back at the other two.

“Can’t you go help them?” he yelled.

Aestith made a face and loaded another shot. The paladin slipped on the grimy surface, landing hard on her ass. The gator’s teeth caught on her blade. Wiltorin scrambled backwards, slipped again. Eilora’s trembling fingers notched an arrow. It glanced off the alligator’s tough scales and splashed in the distressingly thick water.

Aestith swore and ran forward.

“Aestith, help Cakecake!” Eilora cried.

Cursing, Aestith pushed past both of them to the bloodied badger. The crossbow slid into its holster. He bent to touch its matted fur. Its breathing stabilized. The alligator’s tail swung toward Aestith. His shield took the brunt of it, but it forced him against the slime-covered wall. The wind pushed from his lungs and he gasped.

Monkey leapt back across the water, skidded on the grime and stabbed the alligator once, twice. Eilora helped Wiltorin find her footing. Aestith whispered a short prayer. The gator seemed to glisten and sparkle before it ignited, bathed in a radiant light, but a kind of light that didn’t hurt his eyes. The paladin’s blade found its tender underbelly. A vicious slash cut it open and it fell into the sewage. If it hadn’t already died, it was sure to die of infection if nothing else.

“Oh, Cakecake!” Eilora wept, holding the badger. When the beast opened his eyes and licked her face, it seemed to stop her crying.

Aestith made a face. “Can we move on now?”

“Wait,” Monkey complained, stalking back to his door.

“Are you fucking serious?” Wiltorin complained.

Aestith followed Monkey, but stayed on one side of the water. Monkey hopped back across. Eilora spoke soothingly in low tones to the badger. Wiltorin fawned over it equally. Aestith made a face and his fingers twitched, then opened. Thaumaturgic energy tingled down his frame and into the earth. The passage gave a faint tremor.

Cakecake jibbered like a lunatic and hid against Eilora’s neck. She tried to calm it. Wiltorin looked about, but not immediately seeing anything wrong, went back to helping Eilora calm down the badger. Aestith smirked. Monkey, ignoring the tremors, had worked the door open and went inside the storage room. 

A squeak reverberated down the passage, followed by the skittering of claws on old stone. Eilora shrieked, pointing. The rats spilled from holes and swam in the filth. When they scented blood, they moved toward the badger. Eilora stood over Cakecake defensively. The half-elf paladin moved to protect them. The rats were nearly of a size with the badger, probably riddled with disease and parasites. Aestith assumed that they could handle the matter and, taking a running start, leapt over the channel. He landed more heavily than intended but upright on the other side. He poked his head into the room. “Monkey, did you find anything?”

Monkey jerked and spun around in the gloom. Aestith sighed and produced a small globe of dim light, which he sent to hover over the human’s shoulder. Monkey shrugged. “Old boxes.”

Aestith raised an eyebrow. “Right.” He glanced back at the other two. They didn’t appear to be fairing as well as Aestith assumed they might have.

“Aestith! A little help here?”

“Monkey! Where are you?”

Aestith and Brass Monkey looked at one another in the gloom. The drow cleric realized that the pair were unwittingly making a decision; help or leave them be. The snarl of the rats echoed down the sewer tunnel. Aestith sighed and turned to race along the channel. He had to leap back across. Off-balance, he tottered for a moment, then pitched his weight forward to keep from falling back. He trod on a rat’s tail as he did. The creature spun, rearing on its hind legs to hiss before it lunged at his legs. Its fangs bit and sank. He grimaced and kicked it loose. Eilora’s badger was underfoot so she had to compensate for its erratic behavior. The half-elf paladin moved around Eilora in a desperate bid to keep them off of her.

“Cakecake, kill!” Eilora yelled. The simple order seemed to penetrate deep into the badger’s thick skull and sink into its primitive brain. It turned from trying to hide behind its mistress’s legs and careened at the nearest rat. A crunch of bone made Aestith twitch with memory—Nier cringing at the pitiful squeakings of a rat. The badger tossed its head. The broken body of the rat sunk into the sludge.

As quickly as it had happened, it was over. “Is everyone all right?” Wiltorin said.

“Cakecake?” Eilora cooed, kneeling beside it. It snarled only lazily as she poked at the blood to see how much was the badger’s. “Aestith?”

He heaved a sigh and walked over to the badger. So this is what I’m reduced to. He hated to think that he had spent hours out of his life piecing together and learning spells, his fanatical devotion and prayers, all amounting to healing a wood elf’s pet. He did it anyway, if only for the grim satisfaction that the fae-blooded elf needed a drow to do something she wasn’t able to.

“Can Cakecake pick up the trail again?” the half-elf inquired.

Eilora looked at her pet. “I don’t know,” she admitted. She squatted on her haunches beside the beast. “Cakecake, where’s the boy?”

The badger sniffed the air, looked down one way of the intersection, then the other. Its eyes lingered down the left passage, then it leaned against Eilora. She shrugged.

The group bickered briefly, looked at the right passage, then settled on the left. They had gone only a short ways when Aestith, now at the front of the group, stopped. Wiltorin nearly ran into him.

“What the hell?” she demanded.

He tilted his head slightly, debated briefly whether or not he should bother to inform them, and pointed. “Do you see that? They’re poisonous.” He gestured at the mushrooms growing on the side of the tunnel. He was partway bluffing; he wasn’t entirely sure if they were truly poisonous, but they looked rather a lot like a breed of mushroom in the Underdark he knew was poisonous. You could breed toxins out of a plant to make it palatable, but he doubted such a thing would be done for something growing in a sewer.

“We could go back the other way?” Eilora suggested.

“Maybe Cakecake was wrong about the sewer,” Aestith said blandly. His nose wrinkled.

Wiltorin shook her head. “No. No it makes sense that the kid disappeared down here, right? This is on the kid’s street. It’s—”

“So there’s a grate on the other side,” Monkey commented walking back toward them. He held a torch in one hand. Aestith flinched at the light. “No way he fit through it.”

Wiltorin glanced at the mushrooms. “Let’s just look and see.”

With some complaints, they looked over the mushroom-covered passage. Aestith didn’t much fancy walking beside them, but the only alternative was to wade through the muck—and if that wasn’t bad enough, apparently there were alligators in it.

The paladin looked over the spores, then hopped directly into the muck. She covered her face with a hand and forged ahead.

Monkey went after her but along the wall, his head down. Aestith watched impassively as the spores wafted in the air. The pirate coughed viciously, held his breath, and kept on. Aestith realized that he was alone with Eilora, and followed Monkey’s path. He wanted to swathe through the mushrooms with a righteous fire, but while it would help in the future, that would make it infinitely worse right now, so he tried to hurry across. He held his breath much of the way, his eyes watering and his chest tight with pain. Only when he was well past, did he breathe shallowly, carefully dusting his face with the interior of his cloak. He gagged and coughed, half at the smell and half at the spores. Eilora came next with Cakecake in her wake. The badger bumped into her legs a time or two and she nearly lost her footing, then she joined them.

The main passage ended at a heavy iron grate, but a small side passage continued at a left turn. They followed the maintenance tunnel. It was drier than the rest, though the smell wasn’t much improved. It ended in a similar door to the one Monkey had tinkered with previously.

Wordlessly, they parted to let Brass Monkey through. Wiltorin took the torch while he worked. Aestith hung away from it. He hated the light nearby when they were somewhere dark. It confused his vision.

The door clicked open. Monkey opened the door and strolled in. The others hung back.

“Oh, hello!” Monkey said. “I was just doing a routine inspection. Are things going well?”

“Yes. Please leave,” a new voice said.

“I won’t be long,” Monkey drawled. “Say, what’s that in the cage?”

“I’m studying it.”

“Odd place to study something.”

“Leave. Now.”

Monkey backed up a pace until he was in the doorway. He crooked a finger behind his back, beckoning the others. “What did you say your name was, sir?”

Wiltorin pushed past him. “Sir, I was just coming in here with this… maintenance man. We’re conducting an investigation about a missing child. Perhaps you can give us some information—”

“I don’t know anything about a missing child. Children shouldn’t play in sewers. Now please leave as I have work to do.”

Aestith’s teeth gritted. He snatched his crossbow and stormed past Monkey and the half-elf. The room was simple, permeated with the smell of excrement. Torches flared in the wall brackets and large holes dotted the walls close to the floor. A shabby pinewood desk hunched near the far wall. A rat, larger than Cakecake, sat docile in a cage opposite the desk. Near the right wall next to the cage was a man in dirty leathers and almost as scruffy as Brass Monkey.

Aestith said, “Tell us the truth or I kill your pet.”

“Then do it!” The man’s lips curled over his teeth in a murine snarl.Wiltorin’s eyes widened in a horrific realization. Aestith’s finger squeezed the hair trigger.  She shoved Aestith to the side. The bolt struck against the side of the cage with a metallic clang. Aestith staggered.

The man plucked a flute from his sleeve and blew into it, fingers sailing over the length of wood. Eilora ran through the door with an arrow notched. The wooden flute produced a melody more akin to the squeak and shriek of a rodent than a musical instrument. The scurry of clawed feet echoed from the holes in the walls.

Wiltorin rushed at the man. Eilora shot over the paladin’s shoulder, narrowly missing her own ally. Cakecake lumbered forward, stuck his head into a hole and bit something that screamed. Aestith whispered a prayer, fingers twitched. A radiant fire bathed the man and his playing briefly faltered. He wove around the paladin’s blows, then the flute disappeared up his sleeve to be replaced by a rapier.

Monkey stuck a torch into a hole. A rat scurried from an unguarded hole. It leapt onto the paladin’s back. She trained her attention on the man in front of her. Aestith swapped the crossbow for his own rapier and moved in to skewer the rat.

Eilora aimed at the man. Another rat emerged from the tunnel and her aim shifted toward it. It squeaked and twitched violently, but pulled itself forward. No animal of its own accord would have.

Wiltorin bashed the man with her shield and wrestled him down. His head clipped the desk and he went limp.

The rats in the walls continued to come, slowly, inching forward. They feared the light, but there were other holes. Monkey shoved another torch into a hole. Eilora moved to assist her pet. Wiltorin helped Monkey while Aestith finished off the injured rat.

When all the holes were secured, Eilora pointed at the cage. Her jaw dropped, but from her mouth, there was only a low gasp of surprise. Aestith glanced at it. Where there had been a large rat, there was now a small sleeping child.

Wiltorin’s shoulders sagged. “Well. Thanks for not killing the kid, Aestith.”

Aestith stared flatly at the infected child. “It’s a danger to everyone around it. There will be a were-rat epidemic. The child should be put down.”

“It’s a child,” the paladin insisted. Monkey pulled the flute from the man’s sleeve, then wandered over to the desk drawers.

“It’s a were-rat that will spread disease.”

“We should just return him to his mother,” Eilora said. “She’s worried sick.”

“And soon she’ll be infected too,” Aestith muttered darkly, then frowned in consideration. He didn’t really see anything wrong with the child being allowed to run loose and infecting others—except that he lived in the same ward. He knelt beside the body, pleased to find the man still breathing. A smirk crept across his lips. “In regards to our agreement, I will require a few minutes, if you please.”

Wiltorin’s jaw dropped in astonishment and her gaze flicked from the man to Aestith. “But…”

“I believe we had an agreement. Unless you’d care to rescind your word?”

The half-elf’s hands clenched into fists and for a moment, it seemed that it might come to blows, then she deflated; whatever paladin oath she had taken, defaulting on a promise was not something she was able to do. She took the keys from the man’s belt and unlocked the cage while Aestith prepared for the ritual. She and Eilora removed the boy and ferried him into the hall to look over him. Monkey ignored them as he worked at a lock on the desk.

Aestith rolled the man onto his back and cut the man’s wrist. Using the blood, the young drow began the ritual. Without a proper altar, he resorted to a mural of a spider’s web, the man at the center. He had to work quickly. He carved a similar pattern into the man’s forehead, mimicked it in the man’s blood on Aestith’s forehead.

Connected.

One.

The sacrifice and the deliverer.

Aestith’s heart pounded. “Lolth, receive your sacrifice.” He plunged the dagger down. For an instant, the torch lights all went out, casting the room into a darkness more complete than any Aestith had ever known. The world was a vast inky blackness, and he saw nothing, not because he was blind, but because there was simply nothing to see. No definition, no walls, no floor. A tingling, tickling sensation welled over him like a thousand spiders crawling over his skin. His face flushed. His skin felt hot. His loins felt wet. His lashes fluttered.

The room came back as suddenly as it had left, as if nothing at all had changed. Monkey worked at the desk, oblivious. Aestith sucked air into his lungs, chest heaving as if under a great strain, but he felt as if a burden had been lifted. He felt free and light.

He felt happy.

His lips curved into a genuine smile of satisfaction. He could want nothing more.

Despite that, he took his portion of the coins Monkey had found in the drawer. He didn’t even mind going back through the mushroom spores. Wiltorin carried the child through it.

Eilora said, “Was that always there?”

He looked down at where she was looking. In the light of Monkey’s torch, the Lolth marking glinted—the eyes of a wolf spider, over his right shoulder like freckles. “It’s just something that sometimes happens to drow,” he said. That was enough to evoke no further questions, but he was elated. A new marking!

Aestith’s mood could not even be dampened by having to walk back outside into daylight. Cakecake was passed between Eilora, Monkey, and Wiltorin up the ladder. Wiltorin scooped the unconscious child back up.

Aestith hung back at the sight of two guards and said, “They’re going to stop me as we pass. I suggest I go first and while they are busy with me, you can go past unmolested.”

“Why do you think they’d have problems with us?” Eilora’s tone conveyed a hint of sarcasm, laced with suspicion. Aestith ignored it.

He raised an eyebrow. “Beyond that I’m a drow?” He gestured at the child, glanced at Monkey meaningfully. “Look at us.”

“A fair point. All right, go ahead,” Wiltorin said darkly. Monkey stayed a short distance behind Aestith. The drow walked past, and was unsurprised when the guards stopped him.

“Oi, what’s this?” the guard said.

The mark of blood on Aestith’s forehead had long since dried and flaked off, looking like nothing so much as a bloody print. Aestith smiled serenely, well aware of how he must smell after being in the sewer. He stepped unnecessarily close to the guard and slapped the man’s shoulder in a friendly way. The guard grimaced. 

Aestith drawled, “Just on an errand for my guild. Here’s my guild papers, just a moment, sir.” Aestith took longer than necessary as Monkey slipped past. Aestith seemed to struggle to locate the papers, then unfolded the cheap parchment. He flipped it upside-down toward the guard, then moved it back correctly. “See, right there.” He waved it about.

Eilora skated by.

The guard tried to step from Aestith, but Aestith moved with him. Aestith continued, “Very important business at Guild 562—”

“It says—”

“So at Guild 587, we always say, do you know what we say?”

The man sighed. He held the look of a man defeated by his life choices. “No…”

“Well, at my guild, you see, that’s Guild 524, we say—” The paladin shuffled past with the child. “We say, thank you so much for doing your very difficult job. It’s a hard life, guarding and all that.” Aestith slapped him on the shoulder again then whisked away the papers. The guard waved him on, stepping further back. Aestith grinned manically and hurried away.

The others were whispering when he arrived.

Monkey glanced sidelong at Aestith. “Should we tell Sylvia?”

“Probably,” he said dully.

The boy did not stir the entire walk to the tavern Sylvia worked at. Aestith happened to be the first one through the door. “Human female!” he declared. “We have procured your spawn.”

Sylvia looked at him over her tray of empty mugs. Her face was red with crying. “What?” 

Wiltorin, carrying her child, stepped after Aestith. Sylvia nearly dropped the tray, set it down on the bar behind her, and stumbled toward them. She laughed as tears welled in her eyes, grabbed the boy, hugged Wiltorin as she wept with joy. Aestith stepped away before she thought to grab him as well.

Wiltorin and Monkey pulled Sylvia away to the kitchen for a more private conversation. The paladin came back alone with a dim glower.

Her voice came clipped, “Monkey is escorting Sylvia and her son home.”

Aestith smirked. “Despite the way he smells?” They moved to the street and started the walk back to the guildhall.

Eilora stretched. “You told her, then?”

“Yeah.” Wiltorin threw her hands in the air. “We need to find a cure.”

Aestith rolled his eyes. “I suggest an axe.”

“Aestith, we’re not murdering a child.”

He shrugged. “If you are too weak to do it, report him to the city watch. They’ll do it.”

“We are not going to do that!”

He rolled his eyes. “Suit yourself.” He went to the guild only long enough to be paid, and left quickly. He would find the sort of person he was looking for in the dingy alleys on his way home.

The boy did not run when Aestith approached, perhaps out of curiosity, or even simply knowing that the unknown had to be better than the squalid life of a street urchin. The boy was about fifteen at most, reed-thin with hair so grimy it was impossible to tell the color. 

Aestith said, “Do you like peppermint?” He at first offered it from his hand, reflected that this might be frightening for the child, and set it on the lid of the trashcan between them. Aestith turned. When he did, he heard the tin clank of the can, and bare feet slapping against damp stone. When he turned back, the candy was gone.

#

Spider silk sheets slipped against oiled skin. Ondalia stretched and rolled to look at the male in bed beside her. One of his eyes slid open in the gloom. A slave, ceremoniously bled and tied to the bedpost, whimpered somewhere between want and pain.

“Sailanshin. Wake Kaix and toss those slaves out of here, will you?” Her voice was a velvet purr.

His lips pursed in displeasure, but his head bowed in submission. He rose from the bed. The loose braid of pale grey hair brushed against his spine. The stone floor would be cold to the touch.

He paced around the bed. His fingertips brushed over the skin of one of the slaves, who shivered and seemed torn between the polar desires to shrink from him and curve into his touch. He was less gentle with Kaix. The boy woke with a start, and Sailanshin caught his wrist when he moved his fist toward him, then the sleep left the boy and he shifted sheepishly.

“Get up. Help me get these slaves out of here.”

“Why?” Kaix groaned.

“Because I said so,” Sailanshin answered flatly.

Ondalia wondered if the two might have the same sire, as their expressions were really remarkably similar, when they were displeased as well as pleased. Kaix moved from the bed, and would have gotten a knife, but Sailanshin cuffed him. Kaix picked pathetically at the knot with his fingernails. Sailanshin eventually waved him over to show him the trick of the knots. Sailanshin had one slave untied while Kaix still struggled with the first. Ondalia stretched over the bed as she observed their progress. Two female slaves, two male, so drugged and wanton with lust and pain that they shivered every time either drow touched them.

Ondalia’s gaze trickled to Sailanshin, the thin line down to his groin as red-hot as a fire. Ondalia had told him to remove the slaves, the unwilling witnesses to the act, who had so desperately wanted to join and been unable to, so he had to have assumed she would tell him to remove himself next. Ondalia smiled, her long legs splayed as if inviting, but she had told him to get out of bed. She watched his fingernails bite into the human’s arm. The slave was expensive; so tame and well-bred, he wouldn’t even struggle if she wanted to cut his throat. He had been born here, and had never seen the surface. She had a whole breeding program, but it was difficult to keep them from getting inbred. She really needed fresh stock. Their lives were incredibly short, and they could be so fragile.

Sailanshin looked at Ondalia, to Kaix, then bent the slave over the bed. He stepped behind the slave and Ondalia cleared her throat. He stilled. She said, “I didn’t say I was done with you. Only that I wanted them gone.”

Sailanshin looked from the slave to Ondalia, then nodded. He left the slave, who obediently did not move. He worked on the next one, and had finished the other three by the time Kaix had finished the one. The two shepherded the naked slaves out of the room, passing them off to another slave before they returned to Ondalia.

She left the pair exhausted, a lovely image in her bed. A bit of magic cleaned her and she ran a comb through her long amber hair. In the right light, with the right effects, it would glisten like gold. She slipped into a thin robe and closed it to her neck. Barefoot, she padded from the room, following a much grander path than was allotted to the slaves, but nonetheless, the same destination; the stables. Each slave had a small alcove in the stable, separated carefully by race and appearance. Ondalia certainly liked goblin and orcish slaves for fighting, but they were useless at more subtle arts.

Her slavers had last netted her a male centaur she suspected would be quite a prize when he had been tamed. The overseer shuffled to her, the male’s head down. Ondalia said, “Is my centaur in good health?”

“Yes, we believe so.”

“Good.” She tilted her head slightly. “I want its hooves shod in iron.”

He blanched. “My lady, that isn’t necessary with a centaur—”

She smiled. “I know. But once it is done, it will become necessary. It will increase its dependency on its master, and will decrease its chances if it were to attempt to run.” They walked toward the next pen. “I want more humans, Valzex.”

“Yes, while my lady was otherwise preoccupied, the last shipment came in. We do have two humans.”

“Mostly goblin?”

“Yes.”

She frowned. “The humans. Male or female?”

“One of each.”

She smiled. “Excellent. Grown?”

A shrug. “The male is.”

“Any use for breeding?”

“Short of fresh blood to the bloodline, I don’t think so.”

“Shame. The woman?”

“It’s difficult to say at her age.”

“I see.” She sighed. “I’ll have a look at the male first, then.” He was kept tied until he could be properly broken, gagged with cloth to keep quiet. She looked him over thoroughly, had the gag removed so she could check his teeth, then the gag was replaced. She shoved the threadbare trousers down for further inspection, frowning as she looked him over. She stepped back and Valzex adjusted the clothing—allowing the new ones these luxuries kept them from breaking too harshly to be useful. “If he can’t be quickly trained, neuter him. It will take the fight out of him.” It would make the human grow soft, but she didn’t anticipate him living long enough for it to matter if he was no use for breeding anyway. She turned and headed down the passage she expected to find the centaur.

It was a large male, dropped into a pit with a grate over it that the creature could not hope to escape on its own. Removing it for the shoeing would be a hassle, but her servants had corralled trolls and quaggoth before, so she wasn’t over-concerned about their capabilities.

She tilted her head as she considered the centaur’s fate. Her palms twitched. The creature would look handsome pulling a chariot or a coach, but that would take time. Easier if she had a female here, They could breed and the offspring would be broken to it at a young age. Keeping that damned surface route open was costly, though. She needed a new route. A new surface contact would be invaluable too.

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