Downtown Druid

Chapter 56: He wanted them to know that they'd lost

Dantes pulled up his hood, and started walking down the street, keeping an eye on Mercedes from a distance. Two large men were following behind her, each of them carrying boxes and bags of what Dantes guessed were new clothes and jewelry. Mercedes had always had expensive tastes, but in the past shed had to steal to satisfy them. Now it didnt seem like that was necessary.

She walked with a confident saunter, other pedestrians parting like fish in front of a shark. Until she ran into a woman who didnt move out of her way. Dantes couldnt hear them over the din of the crowd and the distance, but he knew Mercedes body language. She was telling the other woman off.

The woman stood, and listened to Mercedes calmly. She was middle aged, and wearing a fine dress. She had the bearing of born and bred nobility. Once Mercedes was done talking, she spoke a short sentence and walked away.

Mercedes blushed red enough that Dantes could see it even from a distance, and tilted her head forward slightly.

The woman she was speaking to nodded at her, and calmly walked away, up the Needle toward uptown, where it was clear she belonged. Dantes noticed two men subtly falling in line behind her. Trained soldiers and killers in sharp contrast to the obvious rough thugs that Mercedes had with her.

Dantes enjoyed watching Mercedes discomfort, until she suddenly turned to look in his direction. He turned his head subtly and engaged with a market stall selling scarves for a few moments, waiting until he felt her eyes move away from him. Her senses had always been sharp, and they were particularly sensitive when people were witnessing her embarrassment. He would need to be more careful if he was going to keep following her. He didnt have a plan, seeing her was too short notice for that, but he felt compelled to keep tailing her. He could feel the chipped dagger on his waists weight hanging heavy. If he was still in the Underprison, he could simply walk up to her, and drive it into her heart before running away. It wasnt an option here, and even if it was, he felt that would be too easy. He didnt want her and his former gang members to simply die. He wanted them to suffer. He wanted them to know theyd lost to him before they died, and that it was him that beat them.

He fell back in the crowd a bit, creating some distance between them. He checked the marks on his arm. He had less than a third of a fang on his rat mark, and a quarter of a wing on the roach mark. He looked up as a small flock of pigeons fluttering overhead, dropping a small payload on a poor woman who seemed to have just purchased a new hat. Being able to track people from the air, or even move products that way would be a real boon, once he figured out his current favor woes, hed need to turn his attention in that direction. Bats may have their own uses, but only at night.

He reached out and found a few small colonies of roaches nesting nearby. He reached out to five of them, and had them make their way toward Mercedes. Two died almost immediately, but the other three made it to her. Another got crunched beneath her feet as it tried to scale her boots, but the last of them made it all the way to the hem of her dress, and hid himself amidst its folds. Dantes couldnt track humans, dwarves, elves, kobolds, or any combination of them with his abilities. The roach though, hed be able to sense over a fairly significant distance based on his experiences in the pit. He cursed himself slightly for not coming up with the trick sooner. Tracking people with individual roaches connected to him was far easier and more cost effective with favor than using rats had been. Then again, he couldnt get as full of a picture from the roaches. He looked at his wrists, and saw the roach mark had trickled ever lower.

He followed Mercedes slowly from there on. Picking up a whetstone, and a few other odds and ends when she stopped at different tailors and shops of her own. By the time she was done, Dantes could see even from a great distance that the thugs with her were now struggling under the sheer weight of goods that shed purchased. They began to head Back down the narrower end of the needle, eventually cutting across streets and starting to head toward midtown. Dantes was able to continue tracking them even when they walked down near empty streets thanks to the roach, but once they reached the edge of midtown he had a decision to make. He could continue following them as he was, doing his best to be just another inconspicuous mutt, or he could become a rat and stay more subtle, but be at a higher risk from just about everything. In the end he chose the third option, and went around midtown, making his way back to the docks while focusing on maintaining the connection he had to the roach.

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There was no reason to rush to get the information he needed. She and Mondego had made themselves very conspicuous in not only midtown, but the entire city. There was no reason to risk himself when their locations and activities could be common knowledge. Hed taken some aggressive risks down in the Pit, where his life had less value, but now that he was out, and after experiencing the consequences of those kinds of risks he needed to focus on caution. He wasnt the only one that could come to harm if he wasnt careful.

He waited until the roach came to a stop and tried to figure out where exactly Mercedes was, laying his mental map of midtown out and then placing the distance he felt with the roach on top of it. He thought for a moment, the old Manor. A dilapidated house from a better time before midtown had gone to shit. Theyd used it as a safehouse on more than one occasion. Laying low after jobs. Dantes clenched his jaw, feeling his small tusks press against the inside of his cheeks again. Another piece of his history taken from him. Did Mondego do anything original? When he finally confronted him, would he become a rat too and theyd have to fight to the death in a soup bowl?

He looked up above the building to see the sun high in the sky. It was approaching mid-afternoon. Vera had asked that he be back at the Vixen by then, but he had one more stop.

He began walking through the docks, past the nicer portion that contained the higher end brothels and bars for officers, through the fish market, and into the small collection of general shops maintained just within the docks. For the most part, shopping was located in the central market near uptown, or in the Guild District which needle street was a part of. Every part of the city had its own shops though, Rendholds sheer size making it a necessity to have at least a general store every few miles or so. The docks had their own full market so that sailors on short leave could quickly get personal goods before leaving back out to sea. They tended to be a bit seedy, but that was Dantes preference.

Hed heard from the shop owner that had sold him a whetstone, needle, thread, and a new pack, that there was an enchanter at the docks who did cheap, and discreet, work. An Academy flunky that had somehow maintained an authorization to use enchantment magic. It wasnt hard to find the storefront. His fingertips began tingling as he approached it. The building was purple, and instead of clever signage, it simply said Cheap enchantments done here on a sign outside.

Dantes pushed his way inside, a bell at the top of the door jingling as he walked inside.

Just a moment and Ill get to you, came a voice from deeper inside. And if you try to steal anything, I'll know.

No worries there, I hadnt been planning on it, lied Dantes as he walked deeper into the store. There were large shelves and a central table on which a number of different items were displayed, most of them with a nautical theme. There were compasses that possessed their own dull glow making them visible in the dark, small leather pouches that emanated with heat for sailors pockets so they could keep their hands warm in their pockets, and a large number of scrimshaws that, when touched, shifted from being images of boats, to images of women in compromising positions. Dantes had received one such scrimshaw from his father when he reached his twelfth year. Hed lived with his mother at the Welcoming Embrace, in midtown at the time, so he was distinctly unimpressed. Nude women werent exactly novel to him.

As he was eyeing a necklace with a bone carving of an eye that blinked every few seconds, he heard movement from the store, and a short squat man with a thick beard and a few sailing tattoos peeking from mage robes appeared, with a scrimshaw in his hand which he placed on a nearby shelf, a few small purple sparks coming off of it as he did so.

So mate, you need something particular or just here to browse the scrims? Its fine since the days been slow, just for the love of the gods please keep your pants on while youre here.

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