Downtown Druid

The room was well lit by torches burning with heatless white flame placed to maximize the spread of their light around the room. The carpet was rich and patterned with a moving mural that showed wars, trade, and myths all throughout it. The walls were covered in a black and gold diamond shaped pattern. The gold parts of it actually seemed to flow, like water, and he found himself watching that flow as he walked into the room.

At the far end was a semicircular table made of pure white elfwood. There were no seams on it, which indicated to him that it was carved from a single piece, or even sung into existence by one of those few elves still alive that had made the initial trip from Elfland. On the table was a brass object that seemed to be radiating heat, and from that extended five tubes which wove their way to be in front of each of the fingers. There were also the usual piles of dust and bottles of booze he always expected to be around when his class of people was meeting.

He didn’t recognize any of them, they were too far up the criminal ladder for that, but he knew enough from reputation to identify each of them at the table. Niklas, the littlest finger, sat on the far left. He was a tall skinny human with tan skin and pale gray eyes. His clothes were the rich brown of tobacco, and paired nicely with the bright gold jewelry which covered him. His hair was brown with patches of gray pulled back into a ponytail, and he had a large and surprisingly genuine smile as he regarded Dantes. He and his Gatemen controlled all the overland smuggling into the city, so he intuited that he may have a soft spot for Dantes’s disruption of Mondego’s sea smuggling operation.

On the other end of the table, wearing an elegant blue dress with glass beading so well made it shined like stars, was Diamond. She was a dwarven woman who appeared young, but Dantes knew she’d been a player in the city for too long for even dwarven aging to make that her true appearance. She had bright blue eyes and thick dark hair that fell perfectly across her back in ringlets. She was, to Dantes’s limited knowledge, the only mage fully endorsed by the academy that didn’t also work for it directly. She could cast any spells without fearing repercussions from other mages. She could still be arrested by the guard, but that was far less dangerous of a prospect for someone of her skills. She, unlike the other Fingers, had very little organization below her, but in spite of that she controlled most of the illegal magic that was spread throughout the city. Love spells, demon bindings, unlicensed necromancy, she could make all of it happen for a price.

Next to her sat Drake, a mutt like Dantes, who was mostly made up of dwarven and orcish ancestry. His chest was massively broad, as were his shoulders, and his hands looked strong enough to bend metal. His beard was wild, but clean, and his tusks were capped in steel. His orange eyes immediately locked onto Dantes’s wooden arm, but he said nothing, just sized him up. Drake worked primarily for the guilds. He and his men were strikebreakers, or Guild protectors depending on who paid him the most. He was also frequently called upon to flex his muscles when merchants and even nobles didn’t pay up for the services a guild rendered. His men were former adventurers, mercs, and even a handful of guardsmen that had pissed off one too many superiors.

Next to Niklas was Fritz. He was as short and stubbly as Niklas was long and lanky. A gnome, wearing fine green silks with details embroidered in gold, he seemed barely interested in Dantes at all as he entered. He was instead focused on taking a long inhale from the tube in front of him, and blowing out a cloud of purple and golden smoke that seemed to sparkle as it hung in the air. His eyes were half lidded and purple, and Dantes was certain that he was high beyond belief, but also that there was something beneath that. Something Dantes couldn’t pick up on. He ran the majority of the gambling in the city. Gambling was legal, for the most part, but drake fights, death matches, and games with high enough stakes weren’t. On top of all that he was a top executive in the Consortium. He had a hand in all of those pots, as well as the ability to make dirty money disappear and reappear cleaner than ever before.

Finally, in the center of all of them, was Argenta. The only member of the fingers that was also on the Rendhold council. Her story was legendary at this point. She’d started as a midtown mutt, became a master thief and assassin, rising through the criminal underworld of Rendhold before making enough money to legitimize her status as the bastard of a noble. Whether she actually was or not, was unknown, but the city was forced to recognize her either way. After that she turned her fortune from illegal to legal, slowly building legitimate enterprises in uptown until it was impossible to truly untangle her from the fabric of uptown society. Once she was rich enough she, through blackmail, bribery, and cunning, took the place of the councilor that represents the nobility of the city. She was around forty, human with maybe just a touch of elf somewhere along her family history. Her hair was black with a streak of white extending through it. Her eyes were a brown so dark that they were almost black, and she wore a simple black blouse and pants with silver accents and jewelry. She stared Dantes in the eye from the start, not sizing him up, nor questioning his being there. She saw things as they were. The other four reminded him of predators or cunning prey, but she was nothing of the sort. She was beyond baser instinct, she saw things with the clarity of an evolved mind.

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Dantes walked toward the table, scanning for any threats. There were guards hidden in shadow all around him. His fingers had been tingling in Diamond’s direction since he’d entered, and something about Argenta raised his alarm bells, but he sensed that these were their usual security precautions. If they were truly planning on killing him, they wouldn’t have actually met with him at all. The second he’d entered, he would’ve been riddled with bullets and spells that would’ve killed him on the spot.