Downtown Druid

In Uptown, the Cruel Lady stood out. A black building with barred windows and a massive sign with the establishment's name framed by a large black whip. It was flanked by a bookstore with flowers in the window, and a bakery filled with frilly cakes. Dantes stepped to the front door of the whorehouse confidently, and pushed it open. He wore a fine black coat he’d stolen, as well as a black hat to partially hide his face.

In the entryway stood a muscular dwarven woman in a black leather corset wearing heavy eyeshadow and black lipstick. She pointed a riding crop at him as he entered, but he could tell that there was also a pistol hiding in her left boot.

“Welcome, worm.”

Dantes slipped off his hat and pushed back his hair, smiling at her. “Hello.”

“What is your displeasure?” she asked dramatically.

He shrugged, deciding to play along a bit. “I’m not sure yet. This is my first time at a place like this.”

“A virgin, eh?”

“In a sense.”

She stepped forward and started walking in a circle around him looking him up and down. “In the only sense that matters.” She stopped in front of him and brought the riding crop to his cheek using gentle force to push it right and left as she took a good look at him. “Do you have an appointment?”

She laughed. “Dosia! We don’t send new meat to Dosia.”

“Well now, that’s exciting.”

She smiled and looked him up and down again. “Well, I don’t think your heart would give out at least…” She walked back toward the small podium she’d been standing at when he’d arrived. She looked at it for a few moments and then looked back up at him. “Dosia has about an hour between scheduled clients. More than enough for you.”

“We’ll see about that.”

She chuckled. “If you have any spirit left in you after seeing her, I’d happily be the one to break you.”

Dantes leaned forward on the podium. “Well now I’m very incentivized to make it.”

She smirked. “Head straight back. Dosia’s chamber is the one at the end of the hall on the left.”

Dantes took a silver and placed it on the podium. “Thank you.” He then walked out of the entryway and into the long hall behind it. He could hear the sound of whip cracks, screams, and moans drifting from each of the rooms as he walked through them. Coming the opposite way was a man wearing nothing, but a goblin mask crawling on all fours. Dantes gave him a smile and a nod, and the man nodded back as if the meeting was the most casual thing in the mortal plane.

Dantes reached Dosia’s room, and let himself in without knocking. In spite of that he found her ready for him, likely warned by the dwarven woman at the entrance of him. Dantes could tell immediately that she was a half-orc, half-elf without a drop of human in her. Her skin was a dark green that contrasted pleasantly with the deep red leather outfit she wore. She was muscular, tall, and beautiful with her tusks capped with gold points each of which had a ruby embedded within them. Her eyes were bright orange, and she held a whip in her hand.

She lifted the whip and wrapped it slowly around her arm as she approached him, causing it to groan as it tightened. As she did so, Dantes peered around the room. The walls were painted dark red, and the ceiling was high with a large canopied bed covered in black bedding against the far wall. Along the wall to his right were manacles, a rack, and some kind of wooden X with straps for what he assumed were arms and legs. On the other wall were whips and paddles, but also hooks, knives, and lovingly recreated representations of parts that would’ve made a less worldly man blush.

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Dosia took the whip handle and drove it into Dantes’s shoulder.

“Kneel.”

He complied.

“Fresh meat…” she muttered as she circled him before swiftly taking the handle of the whip and bringing him back to his feet, her breath hot in his ear. “It’s been a while since I’ve been able to break someone new in.” She loosened the handle just enough so that he could breathe. “Do you have any particular requests before we get started? Or are you just here to test your limits?”

Dantes hesitated, which he had not expected to do, and briefly considered just seeing where things would go. Then his eyes drifted to some of the more exotic things on the far wall, and he decided that in spite of his upbringing, he had his limits.

“Poison.”

“Hmmmm, that’s interesting. It’s been some time since I had a request like that. I can find something that’ll make you feel as if your eyes are melting, or make you into putty in my hands. I could even put you in a cage and turn you feral with lust while I-”

“Oh, not for me.”

She loosened her grip slightly. “Glass didn’t tell me you had a partner with you.”

Dantes pushed the whip off his throat, almost reluctantly, and turned around to face her. “Oh, it's no one with me. It’s a client of yours, named Danglars.”

She shifted her footing and pulled a dagger from a secret sheathe on her corset, pointing it at Dantes. “Who the hells are you?”

Dantes held up his hands. “I work for another magister. One who has recently been insulted by Danglars.”

“I hurt people for a living, I don't kill them.”

Dantes smiled. “You won’t need to kill him. The poison I want you to use on him will only make him paranoid and anxious. My client intends to destroy him in the courtroom or the grand meeting chambers, not kill him.”

The tip of Dosia’s dagger dipped slightly. “Violette prosa?” she asked.

Dantes nodded, reaching into his jacket to pull out a large jar of the powdered mushroom. “You’re familiar.”

She nodded. “I’ve used it myself. Wailing on clients for hours can leave my arms near useless.” She paused for a few moments. “What are you offering?”

“Gold.”

“I don’t know. He’s a regular client.”

“A regular client that’s often behind on what he owes you. When he does pay you the house takes more than half anyway. When’s the last time you received an actual gold from him?”

She frowned. “How do you know that?”

“It’s my job to know. You don’t work in Uptown without the ability to gather information.”

Her brow furrowed, marring her beautifully intimidating features for a moment. He didn’t need to go this route. He’d considered a number of other options to poison Danglars. He could send in rats with enchanted keys to his home to poison any of his alcohol, or work with his clearly dissatisfied secretaries to do it, but he’d settled on going through Dosia for a number of reasons.

For one, the doses needed to be given regularly, and while he might be able to manage that using rats, he didn’t know when his attention might need to be focused elsewhere, or he’d be forced to use up his favor. Danglars seemed to have absolute power of his secretaries, which made the betrayal too obvious for Dantes’s tastes, besides which he wasn’t certain of their ability to be discreet. Dosia was a whore, discretion was her business, and would have complete control of Danglars during their sessions. That and the sweetness of having him betrayed by someone whose job was to comfort him, made Dosia his first choice.

Dosia sheathed her dagger. “How much gold are we talking about?” she asked.

Dantes smiled, and they jumped into negotiations. She was shrewd, which he had expected, and by the end of it he wound up paying outside of his expectations, but it was a price he could live with.

Once they were done he handed her the powdered mushroom and the gold. “I’ll be watching to make sure you’re keeping up your end of the bargain. I’ll be setting a regular appointment with you under the name, Cornelius.”

She nodded, and moved to the wall, grabbing a thick bamboo cane. “If you’re going to pretend to be a regular, we’re going to need to make this look good.”

Dantes frowned, eyeing the cane. “Any chance you offer some more vanilla services?”

She smiled and shook her head. “No, only Glass and a few others do that.”

Dantes frowned and started slipping off his coat. “Well… maybe a visit with her after this will make me feel better.”

…

Dantes left the Cruel Lady with a sore back and a much lighter pocket, but felt overall happy with what he’d arranged. He shifted into a rat in an alley nearby and made his way to the administrative district of the city. Danglars wasn’t in his office, and his secretaries were at their respective desks in the office next to his. Dantes climbed the wall as a roach, and squeezed through a small hole in the roof near his office before skittering into Danglar’s locked office. He hadn’t been able to fit under the door as a rat, but as a roach with the anti-vermin enchantment breaking key on his person, it was much easier.

He shifted back to himself and made his way to the desk and placed the forged copy of the letter from Danglar’s mother neatly on the desk, smoothing it out so that it was visible immediately. He smiled, between the poison and the letters Danglars was about to start receiving from his mother, Dantes had a feeling he was going to be having a very rough time as a magister.

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