Stop! Thief! – Lucky – 23/03/2022

Continues after They Live In You

[Content Note: references to sex/smut, claustrophobia, underground tunnels, near death]

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THE TEMPEST

Orkaan’s arm slammed across my chest. A soldier’s spark of readiness jolted me awake… but then I remembered where I was and I relaxed. I looked down at him in the peaceful gloom of pre-dawn. His beautiful, innocent face was nuzzled into my shoulder, his breathing still the gentle rhythm of someone deep in sleep. Somehow, he had starfished across the whole mattress. I had not bedded such a chaotic, mercurial sleeper in a while.

Whatever secret corner of Port Ffirst we had stumbled back to after our flirtatious late-night ride back from Fort Ettin, it was a far cry from my fine chambers in the Flourished Hook. Orkaan’s lodgings were tidy, but small and simply furnished.

I climbed out of bed as carefully as I could and found a jug of water. I drank heavily. Gods, I felt wretched this morning. This was worse than any hangover. My throat was sore, my mouth parched, my whiskers shrivelled. Whatever magics that cursed insect had blasted me with were still working their way out of my system.

I gathered my clothes and lifted my mail shirt up to the dawn light. It was grimy, stale and wine-stained. Second time this week. My squire Tamarkh would probably give me that pained side-eye when I delivered it to them for cleaning. I wrestled my way into my silk shirt and draped the mail around my neck like a scarf.

The sheets rustled and a mop of curly, lapis-blue hair emerged. “I cannot believe…” Orkaan mumbled into his pillow “… that I was seduced … by Draconic poetry… of all things…”

I chuckled as I finished getting dressed.

“Worst… cliché… ever!” he yelled in mock-exasperation, muffled by the bedding.

“Cheeky!” I rumbled. I loomed over him and pinned him in the small of his back. I planted soft kisses on his shoulders, moving up to nibble the back of his neck. “You know you loved it,” I purred in his ear.

He squirmed and sighed with satisfaction. I stepped back to the mirror and started grooming the worst of the tangles out of my fur.

“So, tell me…” he rasped huskily, then paused coyly. He sat up in bed and shook his locks out, then stretched, flexing his lean, chiselled torso.

I studied the movement of his muscles under his soft blue skin with hunger in my chest. His pause and the stretching looked deliberate to me, and I have to admit, it was having the desired effect. I flexed and sheathed my claws greedily. “Tell you what?” I purred.

“You’ve only just got here. Is this goodbye already?” he asked, looking up at me with pleading eyes that flashed purple with mischief.

I approached the bed once more. “Orkaan…” I shook my head fondly and stroked his hair. Gods, he was handsome, and I already felt heartbroken at the thought of leaving him. “As I told you on the road last night: Goodbye is but a label; one we do not deign to use.”

“Smooth talker,” he said with a pout. “Tell me that in… la Draconique again. Les adieux… Une étiquette… non?”

I chuckled. His Genasi-accented version of Draconic was adorably off-kilter. “Would that those had been my words.” I caressed his cheek. “But. I do have to go… tourbillon.”

With that, I kissed Orkaan fully and passionately, and he nearly trapped me there and then, but I wrested myself from his eager arms. He pretended to sulk as I crossed the room. Then, when I turned the handle and half-opened the door, he flicked a playful blast of air to slam it shut in front of me.

I mock-admonished him, reopened the door, and let my tail rise haughtily into the air, as if he were in disgrace.

“You deserve your walk of shame!” he called teasingly, and flicked the door closed behind me.

I laughed as I descended the steps from his modest tenement. But of course, only one thing had the barest chance of prompting me to shame this morning. I looked down at my shirt, an imported blouse of the finest spider silk, now utterly ruined by earth, magics, and insect blood.

Calculus would be most unimpressed.


THE WATCHER

It turned out the Flourished Hook was but fifteen minutes away, so I took my time, stopping at several points to watch Port Ffirst coming to life. I purchased a choice cut of fish from an early market vendor, with a mug of sweetened coffee, and I found a bench to bask in the cool, crisp sunrise. I sat there in bliss, wrestling with a new quatrain whose final line still evaded me.

It must have been an hour or more before I reached the Hook and nodded to the proprietor, who, upon seeing my filthy state of dress, scowled at me, whereupon I ascended swiftly to my chambers.

I opened my door and was immediately surprised to see a small pair of legs dangling off the side of my chair. Legs swinging absently, and bare feet.

Gnomish feet.

“Ahem, Miss Rowena…” I said, in my very best Calculus voice. “Might I remind you of your cleaning duties once again.”

“Hah.” Rowena slowly swivelled the chair around to face me. In servant’s garb, the baby-faced Forest Gnome looked little more than a Human child. The perfect disguise. She was sitting sideways in my chair, scouring one of my ledgers with a quill in hand. “He’s gone to the tailor’s this morning. Won’t be back for half an hour. Besides which…” She scribbled one final note, then snapped the ledger shut and smirked at me. “You sound nothing like him… sir.”

My eyebrow rose at the belated show of decorum. “But what if it had been him walking in? He could have forgotten something and come back…”

“Sir? It’s Calculus. Since when does he forget anything?” She reluctantly slid her legs down the arm and hopped off the chair.

I scratched my head. “You’ve got me there. Still, if he ever suspects you’re more than a chambermaid…”

“I bet he already does, sir. For a start, he must have wondered why you don’t use the Flourished Hook’s own cleaning staff.”

“Then it is incumbent upon you to do a better job of it!” I glanced around, peering for a single smudge on the floor, a crease in the bedclothes, or anything out of place. But the room was spotless. Immaculate. She grinned smugly at me, and I flicked my tail at her, temporarily defeated.

I crossed the room to my desk and sat down. Before she could pour me a drink, I had waved her back and picked up the carafe of wine myself. “Anyway… report!”

Her shoulders snapped back and she straightened up. Her demeanour immediately changed and it was the soldier who spoke back to me. “I’ve searched extensively for all seven names, sir. My report is at the back of Poetry XVIII.”

I slid the book in question off the shelf. I ran a paw over it without opening it. “And?” I said hopefully.

“Nothing notable about any of them, sir. I wrote detailed files for each of them, but that’s the essence of it. I don’t think any of them are what you’re looking for.”

Disappointed, I set the book down, and slumped back in my chair. I exhaled, then drummed my pawtips heavily on the book, staring into space. Rowena waited in silence.

I caught myself ruminating and snapped back into the moment. “Good work,” I said with resignation. “I’ll have more names for you later this week. When my daughter’s correspondence arrives. Anything else?”

Rowena grinned and rolled a coin across her knuckles and back. She flipped it and made it vanish. “I attended a party, sir.”

“… A party?”

“Yes. The mercenary hub in Fort Ettin. Except they call them ‘adventurers’ here. There was a spring get-together, which I attended. I thought it might produce some new contacts. A very diverse and powerful group of individuals. I included a list of names in my report.” She paused. “If you like, sir, I could–”

I raised one paw to stop her. “Rowena, I do not want you to start a file on any of them. You hear me? No spying on any ‘adventurers.’ I am here to make friends, not enemies. That’s not what this is about.”

She shrugged reluctantly. “What is it about, then, sir? Why did you come to Kantas? Exactly who are you looking for, might I ask?”

I pursed my lips. A good question, but one I could not explain to her just yet. “I’ll tell you in good time. Right now, you’re just a watcher. A chambermaid and a watcher. You clean, you listen, you observe.”

“Cleaning’s not exactly my primary skill, sir.” She pouted impatiently and rolled the coin across her knuckles again, except this time, it became a two-inch blade. And then she flipped it and it vanished again. “I can take care of myself if I need to.”

I scowled at her. “I’ve seen some of these adventurers in action and I very much doubt it! Regardless, this is about ensuring nothing comes back to me. Just the names I give you. No snooping. No extra-curricular files! That is all.”

Rowena’s face fell. “Yes, sir.”

I tutted, half-irritated, half-amused. “Troublesome Gnome. You’ll be your own worst enemy, I swear it.” Then I held up the book of poetry and looked her in the eyes. “Thank you for this. Sincerely. It’s just a shame that nothing’s come up yet.” I sighed and flipped the book across the desk to read it later. It clattered against the carafe of wine.

“Sir. Are you sure Calculus won’t see that?”

“Years ago, I told him not to read my poetry. So he will not open any book that’s closed. And if he comes across any loose pages or an open book and he needs to relocate them for some essential reason, he will simply avert his eyes from the text as he does so.”

She frowned open-mouthed. “And you trust him to do that?”

My whiskers twitched. I set my glass down and fixed her with a fierce glare. “My trust in Calculus is unshakeable, you hear me? Unshakeable! And that’s the end of it.” There was a firmness in my voice that sealed it as truth. She nodded mutely, looking thoroughly chastened.

I drained my glass. “Anything else before I dismiss you?”

She squinted at me and sniffed. Her nose wrinkled up. “What happened to your clothes, sir?”

I sighed. “You really don’t want to know. I earned a purse of 60 gold, so Calculus will be pleased; my daughter doesn’t need to know any more, and that’s all that matters.”

Rowena’s eyes lit up. “I won’t tell my Lady if you won’t, sir. But if you earned 60 gold pieces in a day’s work, I rather think I want to hear how!”

“Absolutely not. The last thing your impetuous young head needs is more distracting, fanciful tales from the likes of me. I gossip far too much with you as it is.”

Her expression narrowed. She was scheming in front of me and I didn’t like it. “You don’t think the Flourished Hook serving staff aren’t whispering tall stories about you turning up like this?”

I scoffed. “Rowena, I come and go in whatever state I please. What care I for the tattling of staff!”

“Hmm…” She slyly ground the ball of one foot into the floor. “I’ve seen you giving that hot young stablehand the eye. The blond. What’s his name? Bryndyn? You want him to believe what they’re saying about you below stairs? Or do you want my attempts at damage limitation? Sir.” Rowena fixed me with an impish grin.

I stared in surprise at my trusted Gnome. Stabbed in the back! She had just checkmated me and she knew it.

“Report!” she declared with glee.

Dumbfounded, I shrugged with amusement and rolled my wineglass in my paw. I gestured over to the clean, pressed clothes Calculus had set out for me. “Fetch me that shirt, then, and I’ll tell you as I get changed.


THE THIEF

“Alright, Rowena. Quiz time.” I pulled off my shirt and held it up to her. “Aside from the fact that it’s completely covered in soil… see this stain? Frost damage. And this one? Scorch marks. This one is reptile blood. These? Insect claw marks. That one’s poison. And there? Some sort of alchemical agent. So tell me: what annoying devil of a creature could do all that?” I screwed up the shirt and tossed it to the floor with my mail shirt, next to my blood-spattered flail. “Calculus was fond of that shirt, poor chap.”

Rowena frowned and handed me the new shirt. “Just one creature? Insectoid? Reptilian? Magical? That doesn’t make sense, sir. It’s all rather… random.”

“Correct. But you haven’t heard the half of it. There had been a recent spate of thefts around Fort Ettin. Lots of spellcasters losing precious manuscripts and the like. It sounded like a rather simple task – but you know how they get with their spellbooks. Coll, the proprietor of Fort Ettin, hired a group of us to look into the matter.”

“Who was in your group, sir? Perhaps I encountered some of them at the Fort Ettin party.”

“Two old friends, two new. Glade the Earth Genasi and Pipper the Lizardfolk inventor, both sweet folk I worked with the other week. With them came Lolli, a cute-as-candy little Harengon, and Amble, a rather gentle-natured Forest Gnome.”

Rowena nodded thoughtfully and set a small stool down next to me. “I think I’d recognise most of them. What were their skillsets, sir?”

I shrugged and held my wrists out. She stepped onto the stool and started fastening my cuffs. “All of them seemed to know their way around various magics. Earth and arcane, I suppose. Though I’m never really sure. In addition, Pipper has a metal arm which I’ve now discovered serves as a cannon!” I caught a glimpse of Rowena grinning to herself at all these juicy details. “I said no snooping, remember! These are all dear friends and you shall treat them as such.” I glowered at her until she looked up at me and nodded demurely.

I continued. “Our investigation took us to interview Eric, a young protegee of the arcane, and a wannabe ‘denomologist.’”

“You mean ‘demon-ologist,’ surely?” Rowena frowned.

“Hah. Indeed. Suffice it to say, I don’t think Eric was particularly accomplished. His life’s ambition seemed to be to summon a succubus and bind her to his will. For… purposes.”

Rowena grinned up at me disbelief. “There are teenagers really trying that kind of thing, sir?”

“Oho, you have no idea. Many’s a lust-consumed young wizard who ended up with their soul on another plane of existence, thanks to their own foolishness. After the fact, it did become clear that poor Eric’s lack of summoning skill had probably saved his life, because he had no idea what precautions he should have been taking during his experiments. I’d say it’s a miracle he’s alive with his entrails still in his body.”

“I still can’t guess what the creature is, though,” Rowena said. I gestured and she hopped off the stool and fetched me a necktie. “So Eric had lost manuscripts to this thief, then?”

I started experimenting with the style of necktie knot I’d wear today. “Precisely. He was keen to recover his spellbook, though Pipper was privately adamant that should we find it, we ought not return it to him. No matter; from Eric’s room, Glade transformed herself into a mastiff and sniffed out a trail to follow. It led us out of Fort Ettin to a recently dug heap of earth beneath a tree. There, Amble’s pet owl spoke to an aggressive crow in the tree, and after much to-and-fro, reported to Amble. The dear chap seemed so polite and deferential to his bird – quite unlike most summoners. Unfortunately, the crow reported that our quarry had tunnelled into the ground right there. The crow described it varyingly as a weasel, wolf, spider or chicken.” I peered down at her. “Still no idea what that might be, Rowena?”

“No, sir. None at all.” Her face was a knot of befuddlement.

“Me neither, at that point. Lolli’s pet bat scouted into the hole and discovered a tunnel, whereupon we concluded we had no choice but to climb inside.”

Rowena looked up at me and grimaced. “Judging by the mudstains all over your clothes, I am guessing it was… uncomfortable in there for you, sir.”

My whiskers sagged and I nodded mournfully. “Barely 4x4 feet in places. Gods, it was hell for me! It was cramped, it was dark, it was poky. It may have been fine for the shorter members of our group – Lolli is just over 2 feet – though I was all but on my elbows and knees in there. I could barely breathe. Even when we found a larger cave, I knew my greatsword would be far too dangerous to my friends if we got jumped in the dark.”

Rowena grinned at me. “And that’s what happened, isn’t it?”

I nodded grimly, remembering the battle, and I instinctively patted my hip, where my flail would normally be sheathed. “Had to use a sidearm, of course. So… any guesses what the creature was?”

She ran over the facts one last time, before shrugging in frustration. “Nope, you’ve got me. What was it, sir?”

“Our quarry was a lone kruthik.”

She blinked. “Just one kruthik? A lone one? Aren’t they normally hive creatures, sir?” Rowena’s eyebrows furrowed in disbelief. “And not exactly magic users…”

I peered into the mirror, having settled on the gentlemanly knot I would attempt for today. A tricky manoeuvre, but one I had watched Calculus perform hundreds of times. “It was… complicated. The Fort’s alchemical labs were directly above us, and one of the discharge pipes was severely cracked. They said a chap called Veridian was up there working round the clock. This was a lone egg that had probably washed down from an experiment and hatched in magical water. Then this creature had taken to phasing in and out of people’s rooms, and gathering paper to eat, including, crucially… many magic scrolls.”

“So it… absorbed their magical powers? Is such a thing possible, sir?”

I shrugged with a chuckle. “Damned if I know everything that magic’s capable of. All I do know is that steel works just as well, either way.”

“So it blasted you with… what? Frost? Flame? Poison? Prismatic effects?”

“All of the above. Utterly at random. It also blinded us at one point. At another, it teleported us mid-battle to the Fort Ettin Teleportation Circle, where the wizard in charge yelled at us to get out and promptly teleported us back to the cave!” I turned from the mirror, holding a necktie knot in place gingerly, wishing Calculus were here to correct it before I committed. “You must know of everyone at Fort Ettin by now. What’s her name?”

Rowena thought for a moment. “Jenna Archselon?”

“Very good.” I nodded. Unfortunately, my tie knot was useless, and fell apart in my paws. How on Toril did Calculus manage to do it so well? I turned back to the mirror and started again.

Rowena was watching my efforts with amusement. “Jenna could have helped with the battle, at least!”

“I gather she was rather busy with far more important affairs, as are most people at Fort Ettin, but it mattered not to my more-than-capable group… It was a tough battle and the effects it hurled at us were deadly. Everyone gave it their all – Pipper’s arm cannon, Glade’s blessings, Amble and Lolli’s arcane missiles and orbs. Glade became a wolf–”

“And you, sir?”

I tugged at the necktie and looped it again, getting frustrated. “Hm. I helped as best I could in the circumstances.”

She squinted at me sceptically. “Well, I can see from the spatter marks on your flail that you hit it several times, so I’m guessing ‘as best as I could’ was probably–”

“I got in a couple of fortunate hits, I suppose. We all did. But it was Amble who delivered the coup de grâce, at which point it exploded with a terrifying burst of necrotic energy. I felt the water –the very life – being sucked out of my body, but fortuitously, I seemed to resist the worst of it. As I recovered my senses from the concussive blast, I saw Pipper trying desperately to revive Lolli, Glade and Amble, who had all been blasted horribly and lay dying on the ground.”

A multitude of old battle memories struck me, and I sighed heavily, yanking at the necktie – now with irritation. “It’s… it’s been a long time since I’ve tried my hand at field medicine. And the first time I’ve resuscitated a friend in the dark, while buried underground, choking for breath. So there we were, stuck, aching, exhausted, wilting from dehydration, and it was only thanks to Glade’s extraordinary use of a salvaged earthmoving scroll that we were able to claw our way out of the ground and get back to the surface.”

Rowena looked at me with worry in her face. “You talk as if it were a simple backstreet brawl, sir… but three of your companions nearly died, and I suspect that creature nearly killed you too.”

“Bah,” I tutted at her. My tail twitched dismissively. “It wasn’t my time yet. Don’t you worry. Nor theirs, as Pipper saw to it masterfully.”

Rowena swallowed and blinked rapidly. “Sir…” her voice quavered. Then she looked up at my fierce face and bit her words back down. “That was yesterday, sir. So how did you get back to Port Ffirst so quickly?”

Defeated, I discarded my necktie with a huff. I’d go bare-necked today. The weather was good for it. I gestured to my necklace and she hurried to fetch it for me. “Simple. After we quenched our thirst, and then quenched it again, and then quenched it one more time, I hitched an overnight ride back to Port Ffirst. Merchant turned out to be a handsome young Air Genasi called Orkaan. A truly lovely gentleman who turned out to be… shall we say, a fine connoisseur of Draconic poetry.”

My thoughts drifted as I savoured every sweet moment of last night’s passions over again. I was brought back to myself by Rowena tutting loudly, picking up the necktie I’d let fall to the floor. “…Sir? You’re barely awake, sir. Perhaps I should excuse myself and let you about your day?”

I chuckled at the way she bossed me around, just like my daughter. I felt very pampered, even when Rowena presumed to tell me off. “No rest for me! I have things to do – no, nothing that concerns you, Rowena. You may get back to your duties. No doubt you have to report to my daughter, if you haven’t already.”

She grinned, but nodded reluctantly.

“Oh, and take these to Tamarkh on the way.” I gestured to my weapons and my mail shirt. She gathered them up and left.


THE BLACKMAIL

I gave myself a final once-over in the mirror. Gods, I was the best damned catch in all of Port Ffirst that morning. I was set to walk the streets and turn the heads of lords, ladies and gentlemen, high and low, those who labour and those who lunch. I was feeling so joyful and light on my feet I could have walked across the ocean, all the way back to Faerûn.

But I had my plans.

I turned to leave. Fresh and full of energy, I headed out of the Flourished Hook into a late morning in Port Ffirst.

Outside, I turned off the main street and made a beeline for the stables. There, I saw my quarry. I sauntered over to Bryndyn, the Half-Elven stablehand, who was working alone. He was stripped to the waist, hard at work brushing a horse down. Tall and muscular, he had a short crop of shining golden hair and the makings of a fine beard. He glanced up at me and confidently wiped the sweat from his brow with a solid forearm as he turned to face me.

“Bryndyn, isn’t it?”

“That’s right, sir.” He looked into my eyes, surprised. There was a defiant, roguish glint to his eye. Wordlessly, he wanted me to know that despite the way he had addressed me, he had absolutely no respect for authority. It was insolent and it was delicious and I was loving the hell out of it.

“Tell me, Bryndyn…” What passed through my mind was: Have you ever been blackmailed by your rebellious staff, who threatens to block your game, so you outmanoeuvre the little imp when she’s not looking? I flexed my claws hungrily and looked him up and down.

He set down his grooming brush and leaned one arm up against the wall, flashing me the rudest, filthiest grin.

“I’ll tell you anything you like, sir.”



Continues in Until Death Do Us Part