Downtown Druid

Dantes sat at his table eating breakfast as he always did. Vera and Jake sat across from him. It had only been a month since he’d defeated Serpica and the city was finally on its way to recovery. A few ships had started docking again, and the overland trade had slowly begun to trickle back in, though everything was slow to recover. Bodies were still being removed from houses as the smell of the dead began to inform those around them of their passing, but it was primarily the old, and infirm, and those who were already too far gone to recover. Midtown itself had recovered the most quickly, thanks to Dantes’s interference, and the money that flowed from his territory into those domains of the other fingers had made them all very happy with him.

“The girls are starting to get business again,” said Vera. “And food as well as drink is starting to trickle back in, allowing us to buoy our reduced supplies.”

Dantes nodded. “Let’s keep encouraging those under us to grow their own food as we did when supplies stopped flowing before. We need to maintain our strength and be prepared in case anything else comes.”

She nodded. “Aside from that, it’ll likely be slow until more Uptown people and Guilders are feeling well enough to come down here again. Decker has been enjoying his work with Clay and Hema by the way, particularly Hema,” she said with a sly grin.

Dantes smiled. “I’m glad to hear that the work agrees with him. Anything else?”

“Just gossip that I’ll save for when we have dinner.”

He smiled. “Thank you, Auntie.”

She nodded, and went downstairs to have breakfast with her girls.

Jayk finished chewing on a piece of bread before speaking. “It’s similar on our end. Goods are moving again, but slowly. The issue is that a lot of people are still holed up and not yet ready to spend. Still, we expect things to get better as the last of the sick die off. Dulles gave us a heads up on a raid on one of our dock storehouses, so we’ve cleared it out. Overall, on the business side, things are looking better.”

“Wane and Felix have been doing good work for us too, though Wane’s not as quick or good at enchantment as Felix is. Seems to be a bit of a weakness for him, and he is not making things cheap for us.”

Dantes nodded. “That doesn’t surprise me, just be sure he knows there’s a secret dice game that he can be a part of that’s high stakes and we’ll be able to get a bit of that gold back.”

“There is?”

“Not yet, but we’ll make it look like there has been for a while.”

Jayk smirked a bit.“Another piece of interesting news. Gavain, the adventurer, is due to arrive in the city.”

“Why?”

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“The adventurer’s guild has called a tribunal. They’re considering removing him as a member.”

“Really? Because of all that business with the slavers in Frasheid?”

“That business has bloomed into a full blown slave revolt. Frasheid planters are being gutted on their farms, and they’ve had to mobilize their armies to try and put it down.”

Dantes nodded, frowning. There hadn’t been any Frasheid ships in the last month. Rendhold’s reputation with them had already been shaky, but with a man who works for the Adventurer’s Guild, which was based in Rendhold causing a slave rebellion, Dantes didn’t imagine that things would get any better.

“Thank you, Jayk.”

He nodded, and they ate the rest of their breakfast in comfortable silence. Dantes cast his focus across the city as he ate. Midtown was busy, with whores back on the corners, dealers in the alleys, and regular folk weaving around them to go about their business. Uptown was quiet, and mostly empty, though a few cafes and shops seemed to be opening back up again. The Guild district was busy, with a number of onlookers waiting to see Gavain and gossipping about what was going to happen during his visit to the guild. He spread his focus further, to the docks where a few ships were being unloaded, and a small leviathan was being brought in to be butchered. Finally, he extended his attention to the outskirts, where before he wasn’t able to see much past the city gates, now he could see the muddy paths and straw roofed houses that spread outside the city, doubling its size. He could see his Kobold men starting to make moves with the slow trickle of incoming traders finally coming to sell their goods. The stream of information he could call upon was great, but he was finding it more difficult to focus on more specific things as he had before. Monitoring his operations, his smaller gardens, and things of that nature required more discipline.

He sighed. He’d just have to give things a more personal touch until his command of his focus had improved. He stood up from the table, and made his way to his garden to collect Jacopo. Once he had him, they started toward the roof, when Dantes hesitated and walked over to the tree instead. The lifeforce he’d collected…cultivated. It was more than the city had, had for a long time. In the past it wasn’t possible to tree-walk from any tree except the oldest in Rendhold, and even then only when there was a full moon… but he’d never tried it anywhere else.

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He put a hand on the tree in front of him, feeling his connection to his locus, and reaching out to the largest tree in his biggest garden. He gave himself up to his locus for a moment, and pushed through, stepping into his garden across the city. He smiled, and walked to Clay’s small shed to find a shovel.

…

Dantes was lounging in his audience chamber garden, drinking some wine. His hands still had a bit of dirt on them from his days work in his gardens, and his muscles were sore, but he was anticipating a bath with Sevryn later, so that wasn’t an issue for him. He’d enjoyed getting his hands dirty and handling things in the gardens directly again. Now that he could tree-walk between them, he could make a habit of it. Overall, it had been a relaxed day, which Dantes had no problem with after the events of the last months. He closed his eyes, letting his mind wander for a few moments, when he felt a change in the air. ꞦΑ

The room seemed to dim a bit, and he could smell brimstone and flame. The door to his audience chamber opened, and Argenta stepped inside, with Gren walking silently behind her.

Dantes sat up in his chair, wondering if he needed to reach for his dagger. He had heard no warning from Jayk or anyone else that she was coming, no message, nothing. Jacopo slipped behind the throne and started to make his way to where he could flank them if need be.

“Argenta? Am I the one hosting our meetings now? I’m flattered.”

She pointed a finger directly at Jacopo, who was hidden beneath thick moss. “Call off your rat. I’m not here to harm you.”

“I think I’ll leave him where he is.”

“Your caution. One of the reasons I’ve come to respect you,” she said sadly.

“What’s wrong Argenta. It’s frightening to see you sentimental.”

“The guard is going to come for you tomorrow morning.”

Dantes leaned forward in his wooden throne, clenching his jaw. “What?”

She sighed. “There are a number of factors at play, all of them complex and interlinked. The city is in trouble, the former councilman, leader of the guard, Krant has passed. The Job has passed to his second, Belman, who was in charge of the exterior guard, Rendhold’s army.”

Dantes nodded along. “The ones that run the work camps.”

She nodded. “Pacha got information about your operations to him, which he found out using a man named Dulles.”

“I thought Pacha was reassigned to the murders in Uptown?”

“He was, but his men never stopped working in Midtown. Belman put him back in Midtown. In charge of it in fact.

“The addict sold me out? A triple cross?”

She nodded. “He fed your man false information. He is accepting a forced labor sentence and the loss of his position to bring you down.”

“There’s no number of guards that could find me and take me down.”

“Gavain is going to help them.”

Dantes clenched fists, then opened them. He’d had warnings that this was coming. The axeman from his dreams, he was Justice, that was clear now. Justice wanted it’s due, and had played the game to get it, waiting until he was distracted, vulnerable. He looked up at her. “You’re not going to protect me, are you? You're not going to manipulate the council? The new guard? Throw some weight around? Some bribes?”

“No.”

“Even though I’m one of the Fingers? You and the others should come to my aid as I pledged to come to yours. Otherwise, what’s the point?” He leaned back in his chair, pieces clicking into place in his mind. “Gavain agreed to be given up to Frasheid authorities if I was brought in. This will help you to de-escalate with them. That’ll placate the adventurer’s guild as well, bringing them back in line to act as a deterrent to invasion. You and the others agreed that it was worth it.”

Her eyes widened a bit. “That is the reason they think, I'm impressed you put that together.”

“Pacha met Gavain once, I led Gavain to one of Mondego’s storehouses, and had Pacha coming in right behind him. Pacha wants to clean up the city, including you, and Gavain doesn’t act rationally, just does what he thinks is right. He contacted him, and Gavain adopted his cause as his own in the usual wide eyed way he seems to act. You believe in fairness, in honor of a kind, but the city is your primary concern, it’s your city after all. Arresting someone like me will also help to restore faith in the city itself as the plague fades, and put things back on track. You also don’t appreciate your daughter’s visits here I’m guessing, but that’s a secondary concern... So if that's the reason they think, then what's the real reason?”

“I still believe one of the Fingers is working with Godfrey, and this proves it. The guard shouldn't be investigating things like this. You should've been left alone. I worked to make sure you would be. Even the initial arrests of your people months ago shouldn't have happened. If you are forced into the Pit, I hope that they become complacent, and then I can remove them.”

He rubbed a bit of the dirt on his hands between his fingers. “That's why you're giving me the warning? You want me to go quietly.”

“Your assistance with Godfrey, your competence. You deserve the warning, and your smart enough to see things from my perspective. I also know that you spent an unenjoyable time in the Pit already so I thought you could easily leave, live a comfortable life elsewhere. If that was your choice.”

Dantes unclenched his jaw and relaxed. “Is it execution for me? Or the Pit?”

“On the spot execution if you resist. The Pit if you comply, at my insistence. There is to be no trial, special circumstances.”

“Do they have enough mages to weave a way to keep me from simply flying out?”

“Belman found enough to finish weaving the barrier meant to hold you in after Gideon Gallant’s escape, so that they can close and open the Pit’s mouth at will. Anything that attempts to fly out during supply drops will be shot. I heard the entire plan from Pacha, it was quite thorough.”

The Pit. He’d spent five years there in misery, but now, he was starting to see some possibilities within it. His freedom, his power, had given him a unique perspective on it that he hadn’t had before, besides, now they truly couldn’t hold him, even there.

He looked at Argenta, smiling. “I won’t resist, I’ll go to the Pit and cause no deaths. Don’t give up my position in the Fingers to anyone though, I’ll see you for our usual meeting in three days.”

She nodded solemly. “I'd never give someone else your position. I’ll see you then.”

She walked out, and Gren bowed to Dantes before walking out behind her.

Jacopo crawled over to Dantes and looked at him. “We’re going to be spending some time apart, aren’t we?”

Dantes nodded and smiled at him. “I apologize my friend, I’m afraid that my time in the Pit will probably be much harder than your time away from me here on the surface.”

Jacopo twitched his whiskers in a shrug. “At least I’ll see the sun.”

Dantes stood, and stretched. “I will too, just maybe not as often. I’ll need to tell Jayk and Vera quite a few things, then I need to take a nice long bath with Sevryn. Time to start making the big moves we’ve been waiting for.”