BT II - Chapter 19 (Patreon)

Micah glanced up at the wooden sign adorning the building before pushing the door open and stepping inside.  The business didn’t even have a proper name, just a picture of a pair of dice next to a crude drawing of a glowing sun.

As soon as he entered the building, Micah was assaulted by a wall of sound.  A table near him was clustered with desperate looking men and women, all of them clutching small ivory rectangles with markings on them.  An employee of the casino pointed at one of the patrons, and the selected man leaned forward, placing four of the pieces in a square on the board.  A second later, the table went wild with the formerly idle gamblers lunging forward to place their own pieces on the board, constructing a teetering structure atop the base created by the first player.

A scantily clad woman and man approached Micah and Leeka, a tray with drinks on it in the woman’s hand and a thick club with a leather grip in the man’s.  She flashed the two of them a bright smile while her companion glowered at them, knuckles cracking as he clutched the hilt of his weapon tighter.

“Welcome customers,” the woman said cheerfully, handing a drink to Leeka and Micah.  “My name is Elsie and I’m one of the hostesses here at Luxos’ Dice.  If you have any questions about the games, I can certainly help you find an open spot at a table, but I’m going to have to ask you to check your spear before you sit down.”

“People have been a bit on edge lately,” she continued with an apologetic smile.  “The last thing we want is for an altercation to turn violent.”

Micah brought the glass to his nose, sniffing it and wincing.  He wasn’t sure what the alcohol was, but it was harsh enough to make the stereotypically rough juusht of his homeland in Pereston smell like fine wine.  Politely, he handed the glass back to Elsie while Leeka happily downed the concoction.

“I’m not actually looking to gamble today,” Micah replied.  The smile slipped from Elsie’s face and the large man behind her took a step closer.

“Don’t worry,” he offered, tapping his index and pointer finger to her wrist and willing a full point of sun attunement to transfer to the hostess.  “I’m from out of town and I’m looking for my brother.  I have no idea where he’s staying, but I do know that he has a weakness for dice and animal races.  I figured that a survey of the various establishments in town might help point me in his direction, and as I’m sure you’ve noticed, I can pay.”

“So you can, Sir!”  Elsie motioned toward the guard behind her with her free hand.  Whatever the movement meant, he relaxed, still watching Micah warily, but no longer actively menacing him.  “Perhaps you can give me more information about the individual I’m looking for?”

“Trevor Silver,” Micah supplied.  “He’s a finger or two taller than me with a bit slighter of a build.  Same general facial features, but he had a long healed scar down his right cheek.  If he had a weapon with him, it would have been a spear.”

“Oh,” the word was wrenched from Elsie before she clamped her mouth shut.  She took a half step back, thumping into her guard.  The lacquered wooden platter she had been holding slipped from her suddenly nerveless hand.

“Oh?” Micah asked, catching the platter and the mug of liquor that had been riding on it with blinding speed.  The liquid in the cup sloshed, but ultimately the floor remained dry.  He handed both of the items back to her without any further word, simply an inquisitive tilt to her head.

Elsie reached out, grabbing the mug from Michah with a trembling hand, emptying the drink into her mouth in one smooth motion.  Her companion took a step back, his club in a defensive position as he eyed Micah warily.  Evidently the warrior had taken note of the spearman’s almost superhuman agility.

The hostess broke into a cough as the alcohol attacked her throat, the sharp sound breaking up the tense moment.  She looked up at Micah, tears rimming her eyes.

“You’re Trevvie’s younger brother?”  Elsie questioned insistently, her voice quavering ever so slightly as she pressed him.  “He said that you might come looking for him, but I haven’t seen him for a couple of days.”

“Is that normal for Trevor?”  Micah inquired quietly.  “How often did you see him?”

“He was in here almost every day,” Elsie choked out.  “The boss had me check up on him because he was winning more than he should be.  Y’know, to see if he was cheating.  But Trevvie wasn’t.  He was nice, and funny, and made sure to keep the other customers in line when they got a little grabby with the hosts and hostesses.”

“The boss even liked him near the end,” she continued sadly.  “Had a couple drinks with Trevvie and his husband.  I think they gave the boss a present or told him something useful because he told us to not bother Trevvie, and the boss never does that when we have someone on that long of a hot streak.”

“You keep talking about Trevor in the past tense,” Micah stated, trying to keep the growing sense of anxiety from his voice.  “Did something happen to him?  It sounds like we only know for sure that he hasn’t been around for the last couple of days?”

Elsie opened her mouth, but rather than saying anything, she just shuddered, turning and slipping past the guard before she dove into the shifting crowds of colorful casino patrons.  Leeka took a step to follow her, but Micah held up a hand, silently halting the tall woman.

The guard swiveled his head, watching the woman as she disappeared into the crowd before sighting deeply.  He took a step toward Micah, voice rumbling out of his chest in a surprisingly deep bass.

“Let ‘er go friend.  Elsie was a bit sweet on T.  He was the only guy that came in here and didn’t get a bit fresh with her after a couple of drinks.  I’ve seen your brother the last time he was ‘ere.  Tried to warn the fella too.”

“What did you try and warn Trevor about?”  Micah asked, trying vaguely to see if he could locate the hostess in the teeming crowd.

“So we ain’t trying to have no trouble with the City Guard,” the heavily muscled shirtless man responded awkwardly.  “But some of those forgotten guys, y’know the ones with the glazed eyes, hang around the casino a lot.  If someone has a bad day at the tables, they approach them.  Ask if they want to go listen to one of those songs at a religious service.  Sometimes they say no and sometimes they say yes, but most of the time we don’t see ‘em anymore.”

“Well,” the guard continued.  “T did fine at the tables, but for some reason the forgotten took notice of hm.  Started asking questions around the joint a couple of days ago.  I took him aside and told him to watch himself, but he said he’d be careful so I left at that.”

“Last time I saw him too,” he finished gloomily.

Micah glanced at Leeka meaningfully.  She frowned back at him, her lips pushed tight into a thin line as she took in the guards words.

“That isn’t a whole lot for me to work with,” Micah observed.  “It sounds like there are a lot of problems with Jakint right now.  Saying that a group of forgotten started following Trevor around doesn’t really help much.  I know for a fact that he could handle at least fifty people without blessings on his own, probably more.”

“I can’t tell you more because I don’t wanna know more,” the guard replied, shaking his head.  “Look, they tried to get me to listen to their songs too.  I said no, and they stopped bothering me for now.  I just get the feeling that eventually, I won’t be allowed to say no and that gives me the willies.  I’m bigger and stronger than any two of their missionaries, but every time I talk to them, I walk away convinced that they would win a tussle.”

Micah nodded, reaching forward to touch the guard’s wrist.  The big man took a step back, some sort of oil making his well-toned muscles gleam in the casino’s overly bright magelight.

“Sorry friend,” he shook his head at Micah.  “I ain’t got a blessing.  Elsie is good to me and she handles all of the money.  I don’t want to confuse things by having you give me attunement and me not knowing what kind or how much.  Whatever you paid her is enough.  I just wanna help out someone that has T’s back.  I’m not entirely sure what’s going on, but T was a good man, and if he’s in trouble I’m not gonna accept no one’s money to help him out.”

“Wait,” Leeka interjected, speaking up for the first time since she entered the casino.  “You’re a forgotten too?  The way you were talking about the forgotten that were hanging around the casino and bothering clients…”

“Nah,” the big man rumbled.  “I’m forgotten, but I’m not like them.  Anyone that goes listen to them songs comes back different.  Makes ‘em as arrogant and mean as a bad batch of booze.  People that were always nice are suddenly spitting on the ground and getting in people’s faces.  I don’t know what the songs do but I don’t want no part in that.  Let ‘em figure it out with the City Guard.  That’s none of the casino’s business so it ain’t none of my business.”

“Now if you’ll excuse me.”  He nodded politely at Micah and Leeka.  “I gotta see what Elsie is up too.  She’s taken the last couple of weeks hard and I need to make sure she’s alright.”

Micah reached out, tapping Leeka’s arm and leading her out of the casino as the guard disappeared behind them.  Barely a half hour later, the two of them were in a bad area of town.  Many of the streets and ramshackle hovels weren’t lit at all, and those that were had the tell-tale flicker of torch or candle-light rather than the slightly more expensive but much safer magelights that illuminated the rest of Jakint.

“Third bar and we still don’t have any leads,” Leeka said with a sigh.  “Still, it’s not like anyone is even talking to us.  I’ve gotten less antagonism while interrogating Roktoll prisoners.  It’s like everyone in this area of town has decided that we’re enemies before we even open our mouths.”

“Luxos’ Dice was pretty near the last casino in the Artisan District,” Micah replied, eyeing up one of the crowds of forgotten that glared at the two of them with surly, glassy eyes.  “We probably just need to keep asking questions.  Eventually someone will give us a hint, and then we can follow up on that lead.”

“I don’t know about that,” Leeka demurred, shaking her head.  “Most of the bartenders we ran into wouldn’t take your attunement so we can’t even bribe anyone.  Hells, I’m pretty sure I saw them trading little squares of scrap metal with pictures of a flame stamped on it.  I think they’re using those as money for some reason.”

Before they could continue, a skinny young man bolted through the dark streets past the two of them.  A second later, four guards in chainmail, their metal shoulderguards glowing bright with some fashion of enchantment rounded the corner.

“Stop!” Micah winced as one of the guards shouted, her voice amplified by the magic in her armor.  “Pokkan Halms, you are wanted for questioning on suspicion of treason.  Stop and submit now or further charges will be levied against you for forcing pursuit.”

The fleeing man bolted toward a nearby alleyway, little more than a narrow opening hemmed in by the poorly maintained rotted wood of two buildings that stood three stories tall in defiance of all rules of safety and architecture.

Before he could escape, one of the guards raised a gloved hand and shouted a command word.  The hair on the back of Micah’s neck stood up as mana flashed, transforming the loose cobblestones under the fugitive’s feet into loose sand.

He lost his balance, one leg skidding the side while the other sank almost to his knee in the sand.  With a bone-rattlin ‘thump’ the runner hit the ground, face bouncing off of a cobblestone before his body went limp.

“Hey now!”  Micah couldn’t make out which forgotten shouted, but already the crowd of manual laborers hanging around outside of the bar he had just exited was beginning to shift into the street toward the contingent of guards.

“Stay back.”  The female guard that had shouted earlier stepped forward while two of her companions went to gather the injured escapee.  “We are here on official business, and interference with our activities will be considered treason.  Unless you wish to serve a time in the public stockade, please return to your drinks.”

“Ow do we know Pok’s guilty?”  One of the forgotten, a tall man in a battered tunic, shouted.  “You just showed up here in lowtown and attacked him with a spell without warning.  We know how the council is.  Guilty or innocent are just words to them, and anyone picked up by the guard?  They ain’t comin’ back even if they dint do anything.”

The female guard glanced nervously at her companion.  The two of them gripped their maces tightly, shifting into defensive stances before she replied.

“Pokkan’s guilt or innocence will be determined by an arbiter after all of the evidence has been gathered.  Now I’m willing to overlook the contempt toward city edicts displayed by this crowd if you will simply disperse and-”

She was silenced by a paving stone.  Someone from the crowd chucked the rock brick at her with all of their force, bouncing it off of the guard’s helmet with a metallic clank.  She fell to her knees, dropping her mace and clutching the dented metal of the helm.

Her companion lunged forward, swinging his mace with enough force that Micah was sure that he had some sort of combat class.  His weapon’s metal head slammed into a forgotten’s cheek, spinning his victim around in a spray of blood and shattered teeth.

An angry shout went up from the crowd, and someone grabbed the warrior by the shoulder, wrenching him backward as another forgotten worker shoved him.  The man stumbled for a second, off balance, before tumbling to the cobblestones next to the female guard.

The female guard barked out the words to a spell, raising a gloved hand above her head and clenching it.  In a circle around her, the paving stones melted into sand before swirling once and buffeting the approaching mob.  The forgotten covered their faces, shielding their mouth and eyes as the stinging dust wore away their skin, spraying red mist into the squall.

The bravest of the forgotten lasted maybe five seconds under the withering gale, but by the ten second mark the street was clear of any forgotten, leaving just the two injured guards, Micah and Leeka.  A scrape on the cobblestones marked the other two soldiers dragging the softly moaning forgotten that had tried to run from them, starting the entire altercation.

“What did he do?”  Micah asked, startling the guard team.  “I’m looking for someone that I think disappeared in this section of town, and I want to know if this Pokka might be the sort of person that could lead me to him.”

“Back citizen!”  One of the male guards growled at Micah, swiping at him with a mace to keep him from approaching.  “Pokkan is a wanted criminal.  We don’t know the full extent of his crimes, but he’s already been charged with dissent, fomenting disloyalty, treasonous speech, and sabotage of city infrastructure.  Unless you want to be chained up next to him, you’ll give us some space.”

“I’ll make this a little simpler,” Micah responded, blasting the mace from the guard’s grip with a wave of his hand and an unspoken casting of air knife.  “Is Pokkan associated with the Dread Chorus?  I have reason to believe that they have interfered with some friends of mine.  I would like to ask him some questions.  Now, there’s no need for hostilities, if-”

“Sergeant,” the now unarmed soldier said warily, dropping Pokkan to the street and drawing a dagger.  “This citizen appears to be a spellcaster of some sort, but he has also engaged in disloyalty and treasonous speech.  What should we do?”

The female guard staggered to her feet, one hand pressed to the top of her dented helmet, as if to hold it to her head.  She looked over Micah and Leeka with unfocused and disoriented eyes for a moment before she shook her head sharply, as if trying to clear it.

“The ruling council gave orders,” she slurred, lifting a gloved hand and pointing it directly at Micah.  “I don’t care if he’s a foreign prince.  We arrest him now, and he can explain himself when we get back to the barracks.”

Micah glanced at Leeka and inclined his head slightly.  Without a word she drew her bow, nocking an arrow the size of Micah’s forearm and stepping behind him.  His feet slipped apart, knees bending slightly as Micah took a defensive stance, spear tip pointed carefully at the stones of the roadway.

“Now then,” he began, trying to keep a disarming smile on his face.  “I don’t want to fight the four of you, but I can assure you that I am not coming down to the barracks with you.  Even if all four of you have specializations, it’d be surprised if you could make me break a sweat.  Now if you let me heal your prisoner and ask him a couple of questions, I’ll happily be on my way.”

“So,” the sergeant intoned, raising her glove with the back of her hand to Micah.  He could barely make out the runes sewn into the cloth in the flickering torchlight.  “It’s treason then.”

She barked a quick magical command, and the thin layer of blood-soaked sand that had settled to the cobblestones after driving back the forgotten sprang to life.  In the flash of an eye, it solidified into long, thin spikes of glass that rocketed toward Micah.

Without breaking eye contact with the sergeant, he cast wind shield, counting on the vast difference in their levels and skills to deflect the attacking spell.  The sergeant’s attack crashed into the defensive spell, shattering into a million shining crystals with an almost musical chime.

The guards’ eyes widened, and two of them took a step backwards, fists tightening on their maces.  The sergeant just looked dumbly down at her hand, like the magic had betrayed her.

“Don’t kill anyone,” Micah said with a sigh.  “We can rough them up a little, but I don’t want to turn this into some sort of blood feud between Jakint’s leadership and me.”

Just to his left, Leeka’s bow twanged, driving an arrow through the thigh armor of the guard sergeant.  The wounded soldier screamed, falling to the street as her hit points spilled from the open wound, staining her elbow-length glove red.

Micah Flash Stepped toward the three remaining guards.  Before the first soldier could react, he spun his spear around, using the moment to slam its wooden butt into his target’s helmet.

The man began falling, but before he could hit the ground, Micah pivoted, spinning on his right foot and turning his back to one of the guard as he spun a tight circle, bringing the back of his weapon down on the front of another guard’s knee.  The joint shattered, bent almost backward from the force of Micah’s blow.

Before the man behind Micah, he Flash Stepped forward, letting the soldier over extend himself.  Micah triggered a pair of air knives, the spells gouging holes into both of his shoulders, breaking them instantly and utterly disabling the man.

Leeka walked into Micah’s peripheral vision, bow half drawn, and let out a low whistle.  He just ignored her, casting regeneration on each of the guards before picking their writhing prisoner up, and slinging him over a shoulder.

He made it about twenty pases from the injured soldiers before turning back slightly and addressing them.

“If you hold still you’ll heal over the next minute or so.  I’m not trying to pick a fight with Jakint, but if any of you are dumb enough to follow me, I won’t hold back.  I will kill you.”

Only a chorus of groans answered Micah as he hurried away.  As soon as they were out of sight, he burst into a jog, forcing Leeka to run after him in a frantic attempt to keep pace.  A minute or so of random turns later, and Micah was well and truly lost in the maze of ramshackle hovels.  That said, with any luck, the same could be said for any potential pursuers.

He leaned forward, letting Pokkan slump into a sitting position with his back pressed against the wooden exterior wall of a dilapidated house.  Leeka puffed around the corner, finally catching up as Micah placed a hand on the groaning man’s cheek, casting augmented mending.

Pokkan’s eyes fluttered open, and just as Micah parted his lips to begin asking the man a question.  The forgotten jolted backward, slamming his back  into the wooden frame of the house behind him and slapping Micah’s hand away from his face.

“I don’t need your charity blessed,” Pokkan spat up at him, eyes flaring.  “I don’t care if you helped me back there with the guards.  I know your type.  You want something from me, but I ain’t selling.  I didn’t ask for you to step in, and I owe you nothin.”

The forgotten pushed Micah away, stumbling to his feet and glaring at the two of them.  Micah glanced at Leeka, and the tall woman frowned.  Before either of them could act, Pokkan bolted for it, cheap shoes slapping into the muddy floor of the alley as he sprinted away.

Leeka took a step to follow him only for Micah to reach out and grab her wrist.  She looked from the forgotten’s fleeing form to Micah and back again, face screwed up in confusion.  He shook his head, instead watching the man flee.

“Why?”  Leeka asked, turning her attention back to Pokkan’s fleeing back.

“Because when I healed him, my Arcana skill activated,” Micah replied grimly.  “That man has been exposed to so much daemonic essence through ritual magic that he almost registers as a daemon himself.  Considering he’s supposed to be a forgotten, that seems like a sure sign that he’s wrapped up in something unpleasant.  Probably the same kind of trouble that swallowed up Trevor.”