Intel on the Targets

“You cut right to the chase, I see...” The unseen Duke says with a calm, reserved interest in my words. “I’m told you’ve already passed the screening... so without wasting any time, we will be discussing the prices and particulars... I wish to register bounties on the criminal calling himself the Duke of Dewhurst, and some of his most important men...”

“Well, allow me to tell you that you’ve chosen the right man for the job.” I swell up with bravado, doing all that I can to seem sure of myself. “How many bounties are there in total?”

“Aside from the false Duke... our intelligence has identified three central figureheads within the enemy’s criminal infrastructure... one of which you’ve already brought in. There are also two notable individuals that serve as something akin to enforcers... Solomon, if you will?” A sizable slot opens up on the door, and Duke Gloomcrest’s hand extends a thin, dusty envelope out of the safety of his room.

From the brief glance I get, I can see that Gloomcrest is wearing a bloodred suit with white ruffled sleeves poking out from beneath its ornately patterned cuffs. The Duke’s skin is pallid white, almost like a withered corpse. Resting idly on his hand are several black, gothic rings of brooding shapes and sizes inlaid with red and purple gems that shine with a bitter light.

Count Drisford takes the envelope from his master, and his slightly wrinkled hands pull out a series of illustrations that he passes to me for my perusal. “Counting the ringleader, there are five targets,” Solomon says, pointedly emphasizing the number five.

I take the posters before correcting the crafty Count who thought he could sneak that little comment past my head. “I believe you mean there are six, and that we already turned one in.”

My enemy’s eyes narrow and I recognize that our battle has begun anew. “I know what I said, Guild Master.”

“It’s as I’ve heard, then...” Gloomcrest utters in a defeated tone, which gives me the impression he wants to avoid confrontation. “Percival Chasteworthe is a... point of contention, yes?”

“Indeed. My adventurers suffered grave damage battling him, and I believe we deserve proper compensation for that... Solomon on the other hand believes otherwise.” Granted, they don’t know about the million gold in credit I earned from the Breeding Tribe, but that’s beside the point.

“Do not presume I will allow you to speak in my place, boy. My thoughts are sympathetic, but my words are practical. Our treasury can’t afford to pay for a man that was handed over before we even agreed on giving the Dewhurst Adventurer’s Guild the job.”

“It’s a... delicate situation, that’s for sure...” Gloomcrest offers noncommittally.

“Is it comfortable sitting on that fence of yours, Osbourne?” The witch sitting to my left jabs.

This causes the Duke to stammer, “Yes, well...”

He’s staggered, thanks to Opalina. I press forward using this to my benefit. “There’s nothing delicate about it. You were planning to put out six bounties in the first place, meaning your treasury can damn well afford to pay for six. Is that not right, Solomon?”

Solomon visibly twitches as my words cut through his argument like a sword through rice paper. “That’s-”

“Easy, now... we’re among friends here...” Gloomcrest senses the air growing tense, and he tries to de-escalate out of cowardice. “Before anything else, why don’t you look over the targets and we’ll discuss... intel?”

“I’ll agree to that, for the time being.” I nod my head, but it’s not like Gloomcrest can see my gesture. Now that he knows I’m backing down, Solomon looks relieved even if his practiced expression of calm severity tries to play it off.

The six wanted posters don’t reveal anyone new that I wasn’t already aware of. Firstly, there’s the tall, spindly, faceless man who introduced himself as the Duke of Dewhurst. After him are illustrations of Fleetfoot, Pimpington, and the Crystal Sage. The remaining two posters portray Butcher Bludman and that Gnoll who the Duke claimed was his bodyguard, Vulkir.

My first thought is that this doesn’t seem like nearly enough. “Is this really all the big names? Pimpington alone had a pair of lieutenants who were easily strong enough to be considered enforcers.”

“I see you’re already trying to bleed us further,” Solomon sneers.

“It’s true, though.” Opalina backs me up. “Surely Fleetfoot and the Sage have lieutenants of their own.”

“Even if they do,” Gloomcrest sighs as the prospect becomes that much more complicated. “It isn’t feasible to pay you to bring every single person involved to justice. After you cut out the heart... the body will wither away...”

“My Duke speaks wisely, if not morbidly.” Solomon butters him up while I think to myself. Getting paid for turning in people on the level of Rhaelyn and Lemira is not a hill I’m about to die on, but I file it away in my mind for potential use later on in the conversation.

“How much intel do you have on these people?” I ask.

“A... decent amount. I have spies all over Arrark...” A tinge of pride beams from his depressed voice, almost making him sound happy. “No self-respecting Duke is ignorant to the going-ons of his province...”

“Oh? I wasn’t aware you started respecting yourself! Must be a fairly recent development.” Opalina adds, a petty smirk on her face. Solomon holds back an amused laugh at his Duke’s expense.

“Ah... Ahaha, yes, well...” Gloomcrest stammers once again and sighs. “The state of my reputation does not escape me and I can’t argue it’s not deserved. It’s true I’ve done little for the situation in Dewhurst, but my attention is focused on... more important things. Unfortunately, this has developed to the point where I can no longer ignore it. The Duke of Dewhurst now has a presence in most cities within Arrark, and we know that he’s amassing a large amount of gold for whatever reason...”

“During our battle with him, Pimpington made several comments about needing the gold for some sort of shared revenge.”

“Hm. Odd.” Count Drisford crosses his arms and contemplates my words. “Very little connects these men, so I’m not sure what sort of revenge could unite them.”

“‘Very little connects them’ is different than ‘nothing connects them’,” Opalina notices. “You’re implying there’s something.”

“We’ll get there,” Solomon waves his hand, dismissively. “You shrewd Sorceress.”

“If we knew more about their leader, we might have a better idea of how this wicked web is weaved...” Duke Gloomcrest’s pride in his spies dies off like a distant memory with a deep sigh, reducing his voice back to its typical depressing inflection. “What we do know... is that the false Duke has been active for at least eight years, likely longer. After helping speed up the city’s transformation into a paradise for thuggery, criminals started calling him the Duke of Dewhurst. Sightings of him are few and far between...”

I can’t say I expected anything different. There’s not much else to dig around for regarding the false Duke if they really don’t know anything about him beyond surface-level observations. “Tell me what you know about Fleetfoot, then.”

“Ah, you see...” Gloomcrest pauses, his confidence sinking once again. “We have... next to nothing on them, either.”

I do my best to hold in my disappointment, saying, “For a rogue, I suppose that’s to be expected...” My experiences with Fleetfoot may have painted my opinion of them as inept, I guess this means they’re putting in at least the bare minimum effort required to cover their tracks.

Gloomcrest is quick to cling to this excuse. “Yes, we can hardly be blamed...” He says, then pivots onto the intel. “The Halfling is by far the most elusive member of the false Duke’s group, but we believe they’ve only been involved for a year or two. Fleetfoot is the leader of a small band of rogues who performs shadowy operations when requested. Thievery, eliminations, cover-ups, you name a problem and they’ll fix it.”

“Sounds useful. Almost makes me wish I had a problem solver like that for myself.” I interject some humor but I’m met with silence followed by an awkward delayed laugh from Duke Gloomcrest.

“As a Guild Master, you’re something of a problem solver yourself...”

“That’s true enough. I’m already familiar with Pimpington’s history as Percival Chasteworthe, so let’s move on to the next person of interest.”

“The Elf would be a good place to start,” Opalina remarks as she crosses her arms, vividly remembering our struggle against the magical druglord. “Considering he attacked us on our flight here.”

“Really, now?” Solomon raises a stony eyebrow. “This is the first I’m hearing of this. How did it go?”

Sensing an opportunity to get a quick attack in, I turn my head towards the old gargoyle and give him a sly grin. “We escaped, but so did he. It’s a shame. If we brought the Sage in early you could have tried to argue we shouldn’t be paid for him, too.”

The Count reels back subtly in his seat. He’s equally annoyed just as much as he’s amused that I caught his intentions. “A shame indeed,” He coughs out, cheekily.

“That’s not to say I didn’t do a number on him,” The witch interjects, her pride challenged. “Only that my hands were tied.”

“Well, it’s fortunate that you arrived unharmed...” Gloomcrest sighs, honestly. “I’ll tell you what we know about him...”

I lean forward slightly off the edge of my seat with my hand firmly cupping my chin. Finally, we’re getting to some solid new intel.

“The Elf calling himself the Crystal Sage is known to his kind as Alvahsaria Jeheldrin Piperiusindor Yrisi Vehl-Revris, or in the common tongue by Alvahs Vehl. He’s a Karnallian born Elf aged somewhere in his fifth century. Studied alchemy and magic for a few hundred years in relative isolation, inventing a new spell or potion here and there to make ends meet, but ended up becoming an adventurer to fund his research. Association records claim that he peaked at high silver rank.”

From what little I saw of the Sage’s powers, he sure didn’t fight like a silver rank. He seemed comparable to our fencing friend. “This is the connection then, I take it? Pimpington, his lieutenants, and Bludman are all former adventurers, too.”

“Yes, but we’ve looked into it, but we haven’t been able to find a common link. Solomon, would you be so kind as to-”

Count Drisford explains for the Duke, “Chasteworthe and his girls come from Imperalis, Bludman worked at the Cransmere Guild, while Alvahs belonged to Bourgeaux.” Rhoivan, Arrark, and Lillance respectively... They all came from three different provinces, then. It’s not impossible that they met, but it also isn’t very likely. “Apart from simple geography separating the three, they were all of different ranks and had little to nothing in common.”

Opalina has been very interested since we moved on to talking about the Crystal Sage. Her mind must still be reeling at all the medical impossibilities his body contains. She speaks up, asking, “So how did a scarcely known hedge wizard go from mid-ranked adventurer to provincial druglord?”

“Debt. Alvahs owed the Association due to a Guild healer treating some severe injuries he received on the field. Getting the details out of them was a pain in the ass, as always,” Solomon grumbles at the thought of working with the Association. “But they explained he was working on a payment plan before inexplicably vanishing.”

Gods, I didn’t want to be reminded that other Guilds follow strict guidelines when it comes to healing their adventurers. The thought of making adventurers pay for access to a healer or health potions makes my skin crawl. I’m so thankful for whatever legal sorcery my grandfather used to let us more or less run our Guild however we see fit. Opalina may charge the criminals of Dewhurst a lot for her services, but I can tell the thought upsets her, too.

Solomon continues speaking for his Duke, explaining, “He resurfaced nine years ago in Dewhurst where he slowly but surely began growing a foothold creating and selling drugs. Today, his dealers can be found in every one of Arrark’s major cities. Our intel suggests he hit it off with Chasteworthe, who at the time was on the rise thanks to his brothels. Together, they formed an infinite feedback loop of sorts.”

“Let me guess. Customers of the brothels were given free drugs to get them addicted, and addicts were led to the brothels?”

“Precisely.” Solomon nods, pleased with my observation. “Unfortunately, that’s as much as we know on the Crystal Sage.”

“That would leave Bludman and the Gnoll, then.”

The Duke on the other end of his door sighs, while Solomon shakes his head. “The Association won’t comply and give us Bludman’s records. We know that for several years he was a bronze ranked adventurer and that there was an incident which cost him his license, but the rest was swept under the rug.” The Count replies rather unhappily. I’m beginning to grow ever more annoyed with the higher-ups in my profession, myself. Given what I know about Butcher Bludman, though, it’s not hard to imagine why he lost his license. But why keep the records on the down-low? Are they implicit somehow?

Ruminating on the possibilities isn’t doing me much good. I move on, asking, “And the Gnoll?”

“The Gnoll is like many of his kind. Violent, unruly, dangerous. No Guild connections either, if that’s what you meant... I can’t say I’ve ever heard of a Gnoll adventurer, myself...” Gloomcrest offers, giving me little information of use.

“Are there any more questions you have regarding the targets, Guild Master, or may we proceed?” Solomon is eager to progress to the battle over the prices attached to each bounty, so he hurries me along.

“No. No more questions. I’m ready to move on.” I lock eyes with the miserly master of Arrark’s finances, ready to drain this Steward for every last piece of gold I can get out of him.

PunishedKom

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