Book 3 Chapter 39: I Heard You Have Food
Dantes sat in the center of the Undermarket, in a small shack made of living wood that he’d willed to grow into the proper shape, with Celeste sitting next to him idly shifting her form to pass the time. There was a line of men waiting to reach him, most wearing rags, and a number of them even less than that. He was guarded by his six men from the surface, all of whom were well fed, dressed, and armed in sharp contrast to the line moving toward them.
Another man, a gnome with a scraggly beard, stepped onto the small wooden box provided for those his size and looked up at Dantes.
“Uh, I heard you have food.”
Dantes reached down and pulled a small bag from behind himself. It was filled with edible mushrooms, fruits and veggies.
The gnome reached for it, and Dantes pulled it away. “Promise on your name that you’ll owe me a favor.”
“I swear it, on my name as Tiltz.”
Dantes shook his hand and celeste placed hers on top of the handshake. Dantes felt something pass between the three of them, and then took the gnome’s hand and pricked his finger, letting a single drop of blood drop into a sack of seeds behind the counter.
“What the hells!?”
“Just needed a drop,” he handed the gnome the sack of food and he took it and ran quickly away to hide and eat it. He was probably safest eating it right in front of Dantes, but so far their paranoia had kept any of them from coming to that conclusion. Dantes called up the next person, a young half-orc with a bit of halfling in him, and started the process over again.