Chapter 7 – Part 8

The oil lamp dripped slowly as Gorka tapped the table with his fingers. The shifter intelligence chief was thinking, trying to get his mind around the loose threads in his mind.

The problem wasn’t so much a lack of information, despite the spectacular and lurid accounts in some of the broadstreets. The problem was too much of it, and trying to figure out what was important, and what was not.

A respectful tap at the door, and his aide stuck a head in. “Boss, Parnain got the changelings saboteurs, and he dropped off the gnome,” the man said.

“What shape is the gnome in?” Gorka asked.

“Battered, but nothing serious. We gagged him after we bandaged him. Do you want to interrogate him tonight or tomorrow?”

“House Orien teleporter is coming at dawn,” Gorka told his aide. “Send the gnome back with him to Sharn, and order him locked in a hot cell in the Cogs. We’re not in a hurry. Let him sweat a bit.”

The human paused for a moment. “Ah, boss, our budget only allows for so many teleports.”

“I know,” Gorka said. “I’m staying here for a while, we’re sending back the gnome in my slot.” The shifter sighed. “Parnain leave either of the changelings alive?”

“No, and two of the five changeling merchants have vanished,” the aide told him. “The Wardens questioned Parnain, of course, but he was actually with them at the time of their disappearance.”

“The red-haired Medani who showed up yesterday and is probably gone now,” Gorka said. “Parnain’s cousin, you know. Wants to be like his uncle, hunts shapeshifters.”

“Anywhere near as good as Parnain?” the aide asked.

“No one is as good as Parnain,” Gorka snorted. “That’s why we put up with him, that’s why Medani sells him, and that’s why even given the sociopath that he is, he finds work.”

“I hear Tharashk has a tracker, really good one named Delegado,” the aide said. “Maybe they should go against one another. We’d sell tickets and raise our teleport budget.”

Gorka considered that for a moment. “I’d put my money on the half-orc, if it came to that,” he said. He sighed. “But even money says Delegado drew his last breath in the Demon Wastes.”

The aide blinked. “Are you – are you serious, boss?”

Gorka rubbed his eyes. “Unfortunately all too serious. There was serious potential in that half-orc boy, and now he’s likely filling a demon gullet.”

Chapter 7 – Part 7

Night fell early on the 3rd of Vult, especially so in Varna, as the towering woods to the west blocked the sun before it disappeared from sight. Varna was small by Khorvaire’s standards, but as the largest populated center in the Eldeen, it did have a night life. And as a place through which armies passed, certain services were always to be provided.

“Hey baby, you want a good time?” called a young shifter woman with long hair. She wore a heavy coat to brace against the chill, but she opened the front of it to her customer at the same time as she activated her inborn shifting ability to enhance the physique that she displayed.

She was talking to a tall man with a finely cut coat of his own, polished armor, and two blades that he carried on his hips with an air of proficiency. The man paused in his even, tireless stride, and turned his blue eyes on the shifter woman. He casually turned down his hood, showing blonde hair, and sigils on his clothing with the insignia of House Medani. The look that he gave the shifter prostitute was neither aroused nor friendly.

A human woman, one with a pretty face due to cosmetics, and aged eyes, grabbed the shifter woman’s arms and pulled her back. Like the shifter woman, the human showed more of her flesh than she ought to, given the weather. “Get away from him, Honey Bear,” the human woman said. “He don’t like your kind.”

The shifter woman called Honey Bear thought for a moment, then recognition passed across her animalistic features. She covered herself quickly with her coat, and took a step back. “The one called Parnain,” she hissed. “You stay away from me!”

The blonde half-elf smiled. The smile was not warm in any way. “Honey Bear,” he said, his voice idly amused. “I’ll remember that name.”

The two prostitutes pulled back, staying under a hung lantern so that any passerby would see them. “We ain’t done nothing,” the human woman said. “You got no authority over us!”

“Never said I did,” Parnain d’Medani said, pulling his hood back up. He chuckled and turned away, continuing on his walk.

It was not a long one. He spotted the red reed tied to a wooden porch post, and turned that way down a dark alley. The starlight was sufficient for his eyes to make out a door of simple wood. And next to the door, hiding behind a stack of firewood, a mithril-plated warforged.

Parnain strode confidently to the door, acting as if he didn’t notice the warforged guard. He knocked three times with his right hand, while his left rested on his shortsword, ready to draw if necessary.

The door opened soundlessly as Parnain felt the magical wards within drop away. The interior was warm, and chairs sat around a table next to a fire. “If you’re done scaring the hookers, you can come in and we can talk business,” said a voice in flawless elvish. It came very close to an Aerenal accent.

Parnain stepped through, then whirled around, both blades out, to hold level at the neck and torso of the warforged that assumed that the half-elf hadn’t heard it move.

The warforged held its hands out, showing that it held no weapon, as if its metallic hands were not weapon enough. “This unit does not threaten the elf,” it said softly.

“Half-elf, you idiot piece of tin,” came the same voice that had spoken in elvish before. It now spoke in common. “Stay outside and keep an eye out for anyone following the Medani.”

The warforged nodded and backed up. The door shut, untouched by any hand. On this side it was banded with iron. Parnain sheathed his weapons and turned back to the direction from which the speaker’s voice had come. “You can drop the invisibility field, or this doesn’t go down,” the Medani promised.

The air rippled, and a gnome sat in the chair closest to the fire, a flute across his lap as he cleaned his nails with a dagger. “And who else would you go to, hm?” asked the gnome. “Who else can tell you how the changelings were hired by Phiarlan to kill the Thuranni who were pretending to be Phiarlan, and take their place? Who else can tell you where they are right now?”

“I know where they are,” Parnain stated. “They stay in the inn across from the fish market, on the third floor. Deneith guards provide security, so I am careful.”

“You should be,” chuckled the gnome. “They have descriptions of your face. Five changeling merchants, open changelings, who wear their wax faces, hired them when they heard Parnain d’Medani was in town. Very convenient for the changelings in House Phiarlan’s employ.”

Parnain’s eyes flashed. “I wonder who sold them that bit of information.”

The gnome laughed and laughed, tucking away his dagger so that he could clap his hands. “Oh, Parnain, you are so suspicious!”

“For good reason,” the half-elf said. “Now, since you want payment, and since I want information, and since we both know that there are two invisible thugs of yours - one a shifter, by the smell – holding loaded crossbows, I say we should get this done before someone makes a bad mistake.”

The gnome’s laughter ceased, like fire doused by water. “Well, well, well, you are no fun at all.” He reached into his tunic and threw a tied piece of rolled-up parchment at Parnain. The half-elf caught it and tucked it into a pouch without looking at it. “Don’t you want to look it over and confirm that it’s correct?” asked the gnome.

“It’s a schematic of the docks, and it shows the hidden tunnel that the two changelings have been working on, yes?” Parnain asked. “I need to check it? I can’t trust the Trust?”

The gnome snorted. “It has the name and description of the dock guard being bribed, and the name and description of the shifter agent whose loyalty belongs to Aundair and whose lycanthropic blood includes good diggers. The tunnel isn’t complete yet, but they want to act before you find them.” He smiled. “Now, you have a Kundarak bearer bond for me?”

“No,” Parnain said.

The gnome raised his eyebrows. “No?” His little eyes glanced almost imperceptibly to the left, but Parnain spotted it. The half-elf marked the location of the first invisible crossbow-holder. “We had a deal, Parnain.” The gnome’s eyes became dangerous.

“Did our deal include giving me a schematic that didn’t show the side tunnel where they planned to ambush me from, since you also sold them information about me?” Parnain asked. His voice was far too calm.

“That’s ridiculous,” the gnome said. It was a good lie, one of the best.

“They gave you a leather bag with ten emerald chips in it,” Parnain said. “And you gave them me.”

The gnome eased himself off of the chair. “Parnain, you think about these statements, you hear me? You think about the business relationship that we have.”

“You think about the fact that I have an invisible henchman here of my own,” Parnain said. “And if either of your men move to attack me, he will kill them.”

It happened fast. The gnome reached for a wand, and yelled something out. Parnain was already moving, and the paper packet that had been hidden in his palm spun through the air, bursting in the gnome’s face. The little humanoid gagged and retched, his hand spasming and the wand dropping as his eyes teared up and he fell off of the chair.

The crossbow-holder to the left became visible as he fired. He was an older human male with an eyepatch. It was an older model, with a twine crank, but it was a heavy model that fired a massive bolt. Before the bolt was halfway to Parnain, another invisibility field dropped. This revealed another half-elf, also with House Medani insignia, but with close-cropped red hair. Wearing greased leather, the Medani warrior held a rapier in both hands, and in one swift crossing motion he decapitated the crossbowman.

Parnain ignored the bolt, as the enchantment from the scroll he’d used earlier was still active, and normal missiles could not touch him. Indeed the magical field turned the bolt just so, and it bounced sideways to shatter against a wall. He slapped a plastic mask over his face as he ran forward. A Cannith artificer had made it to allow divers to breathe underwater, and to protect the diver’s eyes from pressure. It would suffice to protect him from what he’d smacked the gnome with.

The gnome was deceptively tough, like all of his people. He was stumbling clear of the small cloud of particulates that had formed around his face, and trying to get a weapon in his hand. Parnain was faster. The half-elf could fight with his fists as well as his blades. A series of punches staggered the gnome.

The other crossbow-holder decided against the gnome, and his crossbow became visible as he dropped it, the sound of his footsteps heading out of the room at high speed.

“We need to worry about the warforged?” the red-haired Medani asked Parnain.

Parnain slammed the gnome’s head into the floor an extra couple of times. “Not for a while,” he answered. “It will follow its orders as long as we don’t make too much noise.” Parnain produced manacles and began binding the gnome’s wrists behind his back. “Help me frisk this one, then we go out the front and get him to the Brelish shifter. The gentlemen with the blue tunics will pay well for him.”

“As much as we paid for the info that this short rat was double-selling us to the Phiarlan changelings?” the red-haired assistant asked, turning out potions and scrolls from the gnome’s pockets.

“I didn’t pay for that,” Parnain said. “I exchanged a favor for a druid.” The blonde half-elf hauled the bloody, filthy gnome up and tossed him over a shoulder. “This guy Aruunis has had birds and mice looking all over for him, for all sorts of stuff. He sent the info to me, told me he’d ask me for something in return down the road.”

The red-haired Medani readied his rapiers again and followed, ready to protect Parnain. “That Aruunis, isn’t he a Gatekeeper?”

“That he is,” Parnain said, kicking a door open into a foyer.

The red-haired Medani with the rapiers moved around Parnain, and tipped the front latch with one of his blades. “What the heck kind of favor would a Gatekeeper want from you?” he asked. “Aren’t they all about sealing up underground bugs or something?”

“Everyone wants something,” Parnain said. His assistant pushed the door open and they stepped out into the night air.

Chapter 7 – Part 6

Pienna sat quietly in a small tavern, her back to the fire that blazed in the hearth. Missy stretched out at her feet, the big cat rumbling as it slept.

The druidess had picked at her meal, a fine vegetable stew, and now she was toying with her tea. She’d ordered it with brandy, something that was truly a rarity with her.

The tavern was not crowded, not this early in the afternoon, but none sat near her. The proprietor had taken one look at the panther when she had entered and begun to protest, but she’d handed him a ruby the size of her littlest fingernail, demanding good service and adjacent rooms, and he’d gone quiet right away.

For all I with to be disassociated from Cannith, I use its wealth when convenient, she thought to herself, taking another sip of tea. The brandy was suitable, even if she had quite obviously overpaid. She had three hidden stashes of gems and money in the Reaches, and she was dipping into one now.

The doors to the tavern opened, and an elven woman in fluttering pastels entered. She’d come in before and played a wonderfully carved flute for the lunch crowd. A stir greeted her, and she smiled at those who hoped for an encore performance from this daughter of House Phiarlan.

“Sit, flutist,” Pienna said, a bit over loudly. “I would buy you a drink.” She winced somewhat at the hollowness of it. These cloak and dagger situations were not her cup of tea.

Of course her cup of tea didn’t usually have brandy in it either.

The elven woman bowed. “Never would I refuse one so high in House Vadalis,” she said smoothly. All in one graceful motion she sat and waved for a serving wench. “Mayhap you can tell me how you came to tame such a great cat.”

Pienna waited until the serving wench had come, deposited a fine bottle of wine and two reasonably nice goblets, and gone, before she raised a sarcastic eyebrow. “Vadalis? You think anyone here thinks I am anything but a druid?”

The elven woman smiled as she poured herself a full cup. “It’s more important to me that they think I don’t know the difference.” She sipped her cup, and then drained it. “Hm, not bad. Well, this half-elf priest –”

“Gatekeeper, like myself,” Pienna interjected with irritation. This woman had received quite a bit of money, and the druidess expected her to at least get details right.

“Yes, right,” the Phiarlan woman said. “You said that he approached you because he was embarrassed, because this elven man named Aruunis had tried to recruit him to find you based on racial loyalty of some kind.”

Pienna nodded as she drained her tea. Most Gatekeepers were orcs, humans, or orc-human hybrids. Those Gatekeepers who were not of those races sometimes had cause to feel that they were looked down on. Pienna liked to believe that her order was above such petty things, but she was not naïve. Of course Aruunis had been a Gatekeeper for over a century, and if anyone should feel as if he fit in over a long time, it should be he. “Fortunately the half-elf was unnerved by such a mindset, and he didn’t care to track me.”

“He said that he would not have even tried to find you, but that you appeared in Cree,” the Phiarlan woman noted. “This Aruunis, can you tell me more about him?”

Pienna took a goblet and toyed it, wondering at the wisdom of putting wine atop brandy in her stomach. “He grew up in Karrnath,” she said. “He loves order, he’s very into law, somewhat preachy about it, like a Karrnathi. He hates undead, claims that exposure to Karrnathi practices is what lead him to become a Gatekeeper. He arrived in the Eldeen and took his oaths over a century ago. He was moving back and forth between the Eldeen and Aundair freely when the Reachers declared their independence, and he was emphatic to everyone he met that the gatekeepers should not get involved in the war.”

“But you have,” the elven woman noted.

Pienna glared at the elf, and her oak circlet glowed a bit. She had the satisfaction of seeing the woman flinch. “Are you selling me information or are you collecting it from me?”

“I am trying to understand,” the woman said, holding her hands too steady, likely because they wanted to shake. “I have heard tales of Merylsward, I do not seek to anger you.”

“Then help me understand why Aruunis is trying to track me,” Pienna demanded. “Or give me back the small fortune in gemstones that I gave you.”

“Aruunis is desperately trying to get ahold of you,” the elven woman said. “He is even putting out word with smugglers and arms runners, and he is spending a great deal of money. He hasn’t said why, but he is spending money I would not expect a druid to have, and his is desperate.”

“How desperate?”

“Desperate to use such a clumsy tactic as racial loyalty with a half-elf who admires you, and desperate enough to spend serious money contacting people who he must know are freely overcharging him. Oddly, he has not contacted my House.”

“Maybe Thuranni is giving him something more solid,” Pienna said sarcastically.

“Patience,” the woman said. “Your investment in me is not without merit.” She poured herself another cup of wine. “The money Aruunis spent caught our notice, because of where it came from.” She took another drink. “Please, dear lady, remove the scowl from your face, people will think poorly of us.” Pienna forced her face still. “He cashed in a store of Kundarak bearer bonds, some ten thousand gold pieces worth.”

Pienna was shocked. “Where on Eberron did he get that kind of money?” she asked.

“He has some family money stashed away, as you do, no doubt,” the Phiarlan woman said. “But in the past two months he has been obtaining funds, small bits, here and there, and taking them to a Kundarak banker in Varna to turn into the bearer bonds.”

“Why?” Pienna asked. According to an idle remark that she had heard, about two months ago Aruunis had disappeared briefly, and when he returned from wherever he had been, he was in a foul mood.

“We don’t know, but we do know that his wife’s estates in Fairhaven were sold shortly beforehand,” the elven woman stated, sipping more wine. “It appears as if the two of them are liquidating, but why we don’t know. It never occurred to anyone to inquire why the actions of an avowedly neutral druid should be important.”

Pienna did her best to keep her face frozen, but her thoughts were exploding like a bolt of lightning. “Get out, take the wine with you if you want,” the human druidess told the elven woman.

“Excuse me?” the Phiarlan agent asked. Then she started as a sudden, sharp pressure was felt against the base of her spine.

“Lady Pienna told you to leave,” Bresbin said. The little goblin had been seen by no one, hiding in a patch of shadow from a half-shuttered window, but he was now pressing the tip of a dagger against the elven woman’s back. “So you leave.”

Missy lifted her head at this, and casually bared her fangs.

“I see,” the elven woman said, slowly standing up. The Phiarlan agent had a reputation for playing the flute, but also for hearing soft footsteps and spotting hidden dangers. But Bresbin had clearly caught her off guard.

Some people at a nearby table were also startled by the goblin’s sudden appearance, but they quickly decided to look down at their food.

“Bresbin, sheath your weapon,” Pienna said. The goblin immediately did so. Pienna withdrew another pair of gems from her purse and tossed them on the table. “As for you, take my thanks, and this bonus.”

The Phiarlan agent took the gems with a tight mouth and exited quickly. Bresbin watched her go, then climbed into her chair. “Elf forgot her wine,” he noted approvingly, pouring himself a cup. He looked into Pienna’s eyes as he sipped. “What bothers the Lady?”

“Aruunis has never told anyone in our order that he was married,” Pienna told the goblin. Her voice sounded cold, and she struggled to control herself. “Let alone that his wife had property in Aundair.”

Bresbin sipped more of the wine. “More than a hundred years in the Gatekeepers, and he does not say that he is married?” The goblin cocked his head to one side. “No one notices?”

“We tend to be preoccupied with our duty,” Pienna said. “And we do not wear unnecessary jewelry to denote marital status.” She stood, and Missy stood with her. “Enjoy the comforts of this place as you desire, Bresbin, but do not overindulge. At first light I will cast the traveling spell, and we will be in Varna.”

Chapter 7 – Part 5

“You’re three days late,” Aruunis said. The elven druid did not even look up from the maps spread forth on the table before him. The library in the Vadalis compound in Varna had but one study room, and he was occupying the whole of it.

Neddiken raised an eyebrow as he stepped into the room and shut the door. “Truly, brother dear, your woodslore has helped you hear the quietest step.”

“We are not related,” the druid told the other elf in a frozen tone. “If we were the bit of Aerenal that remains in me would require some sort of attack on your person to erase a stain on family honor.”

“That’s not funny,” Neddiken told him, eyeing the room nervously. No doubt he was wondering where the eagle was. Aruunis had no intention of letting the sneaky, double-crossing merchant know that the druid’s animal companion was not nearby. The possibility of losing an ear might keep Neddiken from lying too much.

“If you’re here, it must be for good reason, since so many people want you dead,” Aruunis said in the same frozen tone. He frowned at the map. If Pienna really was visiting seals and doing other Gatekeeper duties out of guilt, and if she really could plant-walk, she’d be hopping all over the Reaches. The stern druid was contemplating a pattern, trying to intercept her. To that effect he’d also sent out feelers to various groups, trying to find her, but they were all preoccupied with the war, not with one wandering druid.

“This is one of the safest buildings in Varna,” Neddiken noted, stepping forward cautiously, no doubt to see what map Aruunis was looking at. “House Vadalis has ties to the Aundairan Throne. The wizards across the river will blast any building but the one we are in.” Neddiken gave a nervous smile. “Maybe that’s why I’m here.”

“The village of Merylsward tends to disprove your theory,” Aruunis said. “So quit bantering. What do you have for me?”

Neddiken nodded and crept forward. “A middle-aged human woman with an oak circlet and a pet panther, appearing in three locations, hundreds of miles apart, within a few days. She’s picked up a pet goblin, which fits with what the shifter commander from the Battle of Chubat said.” He handed a sheaf of parchment to Aruunis. “Dates and locations, along with sources. Not one source knows of the other, and they all think I’m looking to use her in my smuggling operations.” A nervous giggle. “Maybe I will.”

Aruunis studied the notes, then the map. If she was moving in a pre-determined course, rather than randomly, and if he knew Pienna, it was a pre-determined course, then she’d be in Cree today or tomorrow. Pienna would be looking for clues related to her prophecy, but she was avoiding Varna. Why?

The druid lifted his head and flared his nostrils. He and the other elf stared at each other for a while.

“You have contacts in House Orien,” Aruunis finally said. It was a question, but not really. Neddiken had been known to escape just ahead of angry mobs, with none knowing how. The smuggler nodded. “Have them spread the word that you found a warforged of interesting construction, no composite plating. It is inert, very damaged, but you have reason to believe it may be valuable.”

“Then what?” Neddiken asked.

“Then I make you incredibly rich,” Aruunis said. The other elf nodded and licked his lips.

Chapter 7 – Part 4

The footfalls were soft, almost too soft. Few who would have seen the short, somewhat pudgy figure in the rumpled wool coat would have credited him with such stealth. Fewer still would have heard him, or recognized him through his mundane and magical disguises. This was to his benefit, of course. Neddiken Cloudtalker was a severely hated man in the Reaches. The fact that he was still alive was a testament to his cunning.

And his resources.

A human male wearing scaled mail armor walked down the polished wood hallway, two dogs trotting behind him. He was whistling to them, and they seemed to dance as they followed him. The man’s tabard bore the hippogriff rampant in the verdant forest, but his skill with the dogs showed his membership in Vadalis more than the tabard or even his familiarity with which he walked the halls of the compound.

The shortish, pudgy figure stopped down the hall and removed his wool cap, despite the fact that the interior of the building could not fully banish the chill in the air. The removal of the cap showed swept, pointed ears, and a receding headline marked by a thin fringe of gray.

Neddiken had celebrated his two hundredth birthday over a decade previously. Given how decades earlier he had sold out every person who he’d traded with to the Aundairians, then sold out the Aundairians to the Brelish, then both of them to House Deneith, it was amazing that he was still breathing.

“Can I help you?” the human male said. His hand drifted to the sword at his side, even though the months of training with the dogs made them the more dangerous weapon. Theoretically no one unauthorized should be this deep within the compound, but there were rumors of changelings in league with dragonmarked agents.

“I’m sorry, young man, I don’t want to bother you,” said the older elf, putting his cap back on. “I’m afraid I am looking for your library, and I am fairly befuddled.”

The human looked him up and down, his suspicion slowly dissipating. “Alright, it’s this way.”

The elf followed, the slightest of smiles on his face.

Chapter 7 – Part 3

“Missy, heel!” Pienna commanded impatiently. Her loyal companion had obviously found a fish or something, and was hissing and spitting as she reached a paw down into a small gap in the docks to swat at whatever it was. The cat’s sudden lunge and bared fangs was scaring the wits out of the sailors and making Captain Notak very nervous.

“Mistress Pienna,” the human male said, mopping his brow with a handkerchief, “I really wish I knew more, but I do not. I appreciate your coin, but I must direct the loading and unloading, else my best sailors will become ill with venereal disease and bad wine.”

She waved her hand, not really wanting to hear any more about the carnal desires of Notak’s men. Thankfully he silenced himself abruptly. “I thank you for your help,” she said, bowing her head. It wasn’t much for the two dozen pieces of gold she had spent, but perhaps the lack of knowledge was a good indication as to where they weren’t yet.

The Captain bowed back, eager to get back to hiding the contraband from Breland within larger boxes of innocuous goods. He didn’t only hear ‘whispers or words’ from Breland due to sharing stories in a tavern.

She snapped her fingers and Missy sprung up, her paw rather wet, and they headed down the docks back to the town. It was not a long walk, barely a hundred yards. The locals considered it a long walk. She did not. As much as she liked Cree, she had more global concerns.

She found herself remembering an animated bridge-laying wagon that her house had built when she was a child. First it had been used to enable river crossings, then crevasse crossings, and then finally to smash several platoons of Brelish infantry into smears of dead flesh. The metal extensions that it laid out, when fully put together, were half-again as long as this pier.

She’d hated it, seeing so much worked metal being used to end life, and end it so horribly. The Cyran general who’d watched the demonstration had been so gleeful at the carnage. She’d known then that House Cannith was not for her.

She abruptly found herself free of her reverie as a half-elf approached her. He was a druid, and he bore the insignia of her order. She seemed to remember his name. He was nervous, and the squirrel on his shoulder, his animal companion, danced on one shoulder with empathy.

“Sister Pienna,” he asked, as if there was another druidess with a panther by her side in the small town of Cree. He stammered a bit as she fixed him with a stare that was perhaps more determined than she meant it to have. “I – I have been sent to – to find you.”

“By whom?” she asked, stroking Missy’s neck.

She knew the answer before he told her.

Chapter 7 – Part 2

The area before the Cree docks was a noisy one. The four main piers jutting outwards into Lake Galifar, as well as the smaller, homemade planks for the local fisherman, spanned almost a quarter mile of beachfront. In that area were sailors hooting at local prostitutes, fishmongers and salesmen hawking their wares, constables blowing whistles that most everyone else ignored, supervisors yelling at laborers, gulls squawking, bootblacks and pickpockets plying their trade, and a local town official snarling at a gnome bearing copies of the Korranberg Chronicle that he was supposed to come by every Mol and Zor, blast it, and he wasn’t interested in excuses about overworked barristers!

Of the four main piers, the middle two were the longest and strongest, sitting atop regularly spaced humps of earth and stone raised by some long-ago druid with a civic bent to her nature. It was against them that the larger barges and sailing ships docked. Of course given that Cree barely had more than twelve hundred people, some two hundred of which were transient soldiers heading north to fight Aundair, these were docks that could fall in next to any port in the Five Kingdoms without being noticed as anything more than a pedestrian walkway.

Still, at the end of the southmost long pier was a ship, and in front of that ship were a group of people, and one large panther. Most of the people were attending to the loading and unloading of the ship in question, a vessel known as Smooth Sailing. Even in Cree, where sailors braved the trip across the lake rather than hug the shores, the captain was rumored to be something of a lunatic when it came to taking risks.

The woman speaking to him was a druidess, the great cat at her feet that scared the dockworkers made that clear. What wasn’t clear was what she wanted. Passage? A certain cargo?

One individual trying his best to find out was silently swimming under the docks. A shifter, he was one of the few born from an aquatic lycanthropic heritage rather than a land-based one. This made him a somewhat isolated figure. His isolation was also compounded by the fact that he was heavily addicted to certain narcotics.

And his supplier of said narcotics, a human trader of House Orien who had thinly disguised loyalty to Aundair, had given him instructions that he had better follow if he wanted to lick his precious powder ever again.

“I’ve not seen anything like that,” a voice rumbled. It was the human sailmaster with nine fingers. “I would tell you if I could, Mistress, I would.”

“I do appreciate your input,” the human woman was saying. A gull cried and drowned out the rest of her words. The shifter flicked his feet, using his inborn powers to extend vestigial fins to a useful length, catching the wood pilings sunk into the earth mounds with his hooked nails to pull himself silently through the water.

He was almost underneath them now. The nine-fingered man was talking about warforged of different designs that he had heard of, and the human druidess was asking something about half-orcs. The thudding of feet overhead picked up, drowning out their words.

The shifter swam forward just a bit more, coming close to a fist-sized gap between planks. He turned his head, squinting and trying to grasp words amidst the noise.

A great paw, claws extended, reached down and ripped half of his face off. In shock he let go of the piling and found himself swallowing water into his lungs.

Forgive the delay

I've been busy at work, and while the next set of story sections are written, I'm not happy with them, so I hope you'll forgive the delay on account of getting a better product at the end.

I plan to publish two story sections on Thursday, and hopefully a bonus on Sunday, and then back to regular Monday and Thursday posting.

UPDATE: I got hit with a horrible head cold, sorry, will be posting in a moment.