Downtown Druid

Dantes awoke the same time he always did. Sevryn was sleeping peacefully next to him, her jewelry glinting in the morning sunlight that poured in through the window. She’d kept it on all night. He’d liked that, it had made the room sound like it was raining coins.

He silently left the bed and began going through his morning routine. He exercised in his garden, joined this time by Jacopo. They chased one another and sparred. Jacopo always had the advantage of strength, but Dantes was more wily, particularly when they were both in human form. Jacopo was getting more dextrous, but Dantes had been scrapping with people larger than himself his entire life, and was shameless about using any tricks he had to his advantage.

“That woman you spent the night with. She is your new mate?” he asked as he swung a punch in human form at Dantes.

Dantes dodged under it and shifted to ratform, slipping between Jacopo’s legs as he did so.

“As much as any woman I spend a single night with is a mate.”

Jacopo shifted into a pigeon and started striking at him with his beak.

“So many mates, but no young? I have spawned thousands.”

Dantes shifted into batform and wrapped his leathery wings around him, causing them to roll along the mossy floor.

“The Vixen, both Vivacious and Viridian, as well as most other clubs, are enchanted to prevent pregnancy.”

Jacopo changed back into human form to break free and Dantes became a roach and began crawling to the center of his back where he couldn’t reach.

“You should want as many young as possible.”

“No, I really shouldn’t.”

Jacopo fell backward to try and crush him, and Dantes became himself again to place him in a headlock as they landed on the ground.

“The strong should have many young. You are strong. You should have many young.”

“I don’t want children unless I can take care of them.” he tightened his hold as Jacopo struggled a bit. “Two-legs have a bit more active role in that than rats do.”

Jacopo shifted into a pigeon, and quickly flapped his wings in Dantes’s face, blinding him and creating distance at the same time.

Dantes raised his wooden hand and had the fingers grow into vines that captured Jacopo in the air and then drew him back to him, changing his hand into a small cage.

“I should gnaw my arm off to have one of those.”

Dantes laughed. “You’d probably be able to handle the pain of that better than I did.”

They walked to the bathroom where a warm bath had already been drawn for both of them. After that they got dressed and ready, Dantes walked down to the bar for breakfast, with Jacopo sitting openly on his shoulder. Everyone was used to him by now, though only Vera and a select few others knew that he could become a man.

Jayk and Vera were already at the table waiting for him as he brought his plate up from the bar.

Good mornings were skipped as Jayk jumped straight to business. “Argenta has called a meeting of the fingers and wants you there straight away.”

Dantes stood right back up and grabbed a small piece of toast from Jayk’s plate. “Okay, you keep an eye on things here.” he looked at Vera. “Auntie, I gave the woman sleeping in my bed the singing job.”

She sighed heavily and held the bridge of her nose with two fingers. “The one with the light purple eyes?”

Dantes nodded shamelessly.

“Of course you did. I’ll take care of it. I suppose even with all of your gifts you’re still a man.”

“I surround myself with competent people like you two to help mitigate my weaknesses.”

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They exchanged a weary glance with one another.

Dantes dropped his smile, letting his tone get serious. “If I don’t signal or return within a few hours, you know what to do.”

They nodded in confirmation, and Dantes climbed back upstairs to the roof where he and Jacopo shifted into pigeons and started to make their way to the Silken Sin.

…

Dantes landed on a nearby rooftop and stretched his wings a bit before shifting back to himself. Jacopo landed on his shoulder as a pigeon before shifting back into a rat and climbing into one of the many hidden pockets Dantes had sewn into all of his coats. He leapt down, landing without a sound and walked toward the Silken Sin.

There were more than double the usual guards not including those who were pretending to be customers. Dantes ignored them, and was waved right through the front door where two topless hostesses were waiting to take him the rest of the way. He didn’t spare them more than one appreciative glance as they guided him to the Fingers meeting room. As it was throughout the rest of the building, there was increased security there as well, but they waved him through as well.

In the middle of the room, a man had been bound and tied to the rafters, a dirty rag shoved into his mouth to gag him. He was covered in cuts and bruises, his body limp, though Dantes could tell he was still breathing.

Past him, sat the fingers. Diamond was wearing a low-cut black dress with makeup on her face that made it look as if she’d been shedding black tears, her lustrous dwarven hair wrapped in a kind of black mourning weave. Drake’s massive form loomed darkly next to her, the knuckles of his massive hands bruised, indicating he’d had a hand in the state of the man tied up in the center of the room. Argenta wore black, though Dantes didn’t think it was due to her mourning Niklas or even pretending to. He’d never seen her in any other color. Fritz was wearing a gaudy outfit of silk that made him look like a foreign prince, and his eyes were half lidded as always, though Dantes knew that even high he was sharper than most people would be cold sober.

Dantes nodded at them as he entered, then gestured to the strung up man.

“I thought those rumors about you all doing human sacrifice were a joke?”

No one laughed.

“I’m guessing this has something to do with Niklas’s death?:

Argenta nodded. “That’s right. This was one of his lieutenants. Apparently, Niklas had his way with the man’s wife and he began plotting to kill him and take over the operation.”

Dantes feigned a surprised look. He was the one who’d told her about that. It was easy to see what was happening in an organization when you had control over the rats in the walls. Of course, the lieutenant had been far too busy continuously searching for the bottom of any bottle of booze he could find to have any actual ambitions on Niklas’s position.

Dantes frowned. “Really? This guy managed to take him out?”

“He used poison. A coward's weapon,” said Drake, flexing his hands as he spoke.

Dantes shook his head. “A man like Niklas deserved to go out better than that.”

“He shouldn’t have gone out at all,” said Diamond. “We’re meant to be invincible. I offered so many times to sell him enchantments or items that could protect him. Now thanks to his thrift we all look vulnerable.”

Fritz took a small tablet off the table in front of him, and swallowed it, washing it down with a gulp of wine that may have made an orc stumble, but didn’t cause any reaction at all in the gnome. “We need to figure out how to shore up the supply he brought in as well. It was already a problem with that plague or whatever that’s eating up the routes.”

Argenta nodded and glanced sideways at Dantes, the single white streak in her hair catching the light in such a way that it almost seemed to be glowing. “Those are the reasons I called Dantes here.” She stood up, and the others went silent to put all of their attention on her. “We look vulnerable with one of our own dead. Niklas was the youngest of us, but we’d been working together for more than a decade. If we leave a vacuum for too long, it may make the guard think we are weak and push for higher payment, or it could make the smaller gangs cause unrest for us. We had already discussed making him one of us. I think that now is the time.”

Drake laughed and shook his head. “This whelp? He commands almost no muscle.”

Diamond nodded. “Filling the void left by Niklas too quickly shows almost as much weakness as his death does.”

“I like the idea,” countered Fritz, causing Diamond and Drake to raise their eyebrows. “He consolidated Mondego’s operation, re-established connections with all of the smugglers, and paid us all back with no issues. We need someone who can take hold of Niklas’s operations quickly. I could do it, but that would require sobriety, and I don’t want that.”

“I would obviously accept it if it was offered. Seems almost as strange for the Fingers to have only four members as it would for there to be six of them. Unless they were always meant to be Kobold’s fingers.”

That time he got a mild chuckle from Drake and Fritz.

“Dantes has paid all of his debts to us, and met all of the criteria we’ve laid out for him, unlike Mondego. I need a consensus.”

“I’m for it,” said Fritz.

Diamond took one of the ringlets of her hair that was protruding from her veil and twisted it a bit looking Dantes over. “Well, at least he’s more to look at than Niklas was. He was far too skinny.”

Drake looked argumentative for a moment, but glanced at Argenta, who didn’t even look at him, and shrugged. “I’m for it.”

Argenta nodded. “It’s settled then.” She gestured to Diamond who twisted her hand causing a small blue crystal to appear in it. She handed it to Argenta.

The crystal glowed, and Dantes could feel his fingertips start to tingle.

“There’s only one thing that must be done for you to be initiated into the Fingers.”

“If it’s one of those where you take turns beating me, I’d very much like to skip Drake’s round.”

She smiled a bit. “No. This crystal will capture with perfect clarity your next several actions. I want you to kill that man while it is active.”

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