One lead. That’s all they had, but it was technically better
than nothing. Hunting down a select few individuals that are trying to start a
shadow government in a city this large could easily take months. Thankfully
Pascal had a single lead for them to check out. As a group they decided that if
this lead was a dead end they would leave the job unfinished, they just didn’t
have the time to waste spending possibly months here. Pascal had told them
about a house in the slums of the city that had been having much more traffic
than it should be, so that’s where the party headed off to.
As they walked through the slums of Talama, they stood out
like a bloodstain on a wedding dress. While they weren’t overdressed for this
place, they were armed too well to belong in this part of the city. Even as
mercenaries, it was obvious they would, and could, find better work in the main
part of town. A skittish woman crawled out from an alleyway and stood up right
in front of the group, “What’d’ya g-g-gu-g-gu-guys-guys-s-s want?” She asked as
she twitched constantly in front of them, “Don’t look-look like ya
belong-…here.”
“Well you got that part right.” Walker smirked at her. He
shot a quick glare to the rest of his friends letting them know to leave him
alone with this.
“You come ‘ere-…come ‘ere for the-the-the new drug?” Her head snapped violently to the side for a fraction of a second.
“Heard some pretty crazy things about it.” Walker lied
fluently, “How new is it?”
The addict bit her tongue for a few seconds before speaking
up, “Maybe-maybe-maybe….month-nth or two?” She nodded her head violently,
“Ye-yea.”
Walker smiled and nodded at her, “Know what it is?”
She threw her head back and forth, “N-n-no. G-good though.”
Walker took a deep breath, “How much for a small, small
testing amount? Just enough for one use, to see what it’s like.”
“We-we-we ain’t supposed to sell it.” She said cautiously,
“O-only-only Garet supposed to sell.”
“How much you pay for one use then?” Walker asked.
“Uh…uh…”She shook her head as she thought about it, “Hundred…?”
She suddenly nodded, “Hun-hund-hundred per-er use.” She finally said.
“We’ll give you two hundred for one use.” Walker quickly
told her.
Her eyes lit up in excitement and she fumbled in her pockets
finding a very small vial filled with a translucent white liquid. “Coin!” She
snapped at him.
Walker quickly looked back at Rede and nodded at him to get
out the coin. Rede’s mouth dropped open, “What?” Rede asked him in shock, “I’m
not-“
“Just do it.” Walker cut him off, “Trust me.”
Rede growled at him and reluctantly handed over two one
hundred coin pieces. “There you go.”
The addict was completely focused on the coins as she forced
the small vial into Walker’s hands so that she could grasp the coins. She
started to crawl away, but quickly turned around for one last second, “Dr-drink
for slower, b-but longer high.” Her whole body twitched, “In-inject for-for
instant, stronger, b-but shorter.” She then scampered back down the alleyway
she came from. Walker shook his head and popped open the vial to smell it.
“What are you doing?” Rede asked him.
Walker smelled it a few more times before furrowed his brow,
“Trying to figure out what is it…” He licked his lips and looked over at Shade,
“Hey Shade, got any ice crab claws on ya?”
“I know what you’re doing.” Shade smiled at Walker, “And I
got something even better for you.”
Walker smiled at Shade as she walked over, “No way…you
really have one?”
Shade chuckled as he pulled out an even smaller vial from
his pocket, “Oh no, I have many.” In the vial was a very small worm like
creature. She got ready to pour the worm into the vial of drugs, “So, what
color are you thinking?”
“With a bit of luck, blue.” Walker shook his head at her,
“How the hell did you get multiple crideels?”
“I’m an experimental alchemist. I need them.” Shade smiled
and quickly opened his vial and poured a crideel into the liquid drug. Steam
poured out of the vial for a few seconds as a faint squeal filled the air.
Merely a second later, the squeal and the bubbling both stopped. The grey
creature then slowly started to fade into a blue color.
“Damn I’m good!” Walker shouted proudly. He put the lid back
on the vial and handed it to Shade, “Your problem to retrieve that little
thing.”
Shade took the vial and smiled at him, “Poisonous, huh? What
is it?” She asked Walker.
Walker turned around to face everyone, “I think I just found
the source of income.” He smiled at them, “It’s a cheap, light poison made from
starfish off the coast of Dalieria. Induces drug-like symptoms in users for a
much, MUCH, cheaper price. Not a popular drug though because it’ll end up
killing any user pretty quickly.”
“How do you know that’s our source of income?” Calie asked
him.
“New drug, only a month or so old. The house we’re going to
check out, only suspicious a month or so ago. Our people need a huge source of
income to fuel their operations and this is one of the most popular ways to do
it. It’s not hard guys. Two plus two equals four here. I’d bet a ton that this
Garet guy lives in that house.”
“Kill Garet. Stop money.” Gorgos said.
Walker nodded at her, “Exactly!” Gorgos smiled proud of
herself, “Also there is always a money trail to follow. We get to its source
and we can follow it down.”
Calie shook her head, “Alright, let’s go see exactly what
that house is about. It didn’t take them too long to find the precariously built
wooden home. It was larger than many of the other homes in the area, but looked
like it was even in worse condition. Many planks were missing, none of the
windows had glass in them, and the whole house creaked with the slightest
breeze. Calie walked up to the door and knocked on it. They waited in silence
for awhile, but heard no signs of life coming from inside the house. Calie
shrugged and tried again, but no response. “Should we invite ourselves in?” She
finally asked.
Walker shrugged, “Go for it, but be careful. If this is a
drug dealer house, it’s bound to have some traps.”
Calie nodded at him, “I have an idea then.” She turned to Gorgos,
“You wanna punch a door?”
“Punch!” Gorgos said excitedly.
“Good. I want to see that door fly and hit the far wall.”
Gorgos nodded at her and stepped up towards the door. “Once you hit that door
though, you need to move out of the way in case any traps are there.”
“Punch, move.” Gorgos repeated, “Ok.” Gorgos took a deep
breath and slowly got into a power stance, readying her blow. She wanted to
make sure that door was going to go soaring through the air. Finally after a
few seconds, she put her whole body behind her punch and broke the door right
off of its hinges. Right as she blasted it, Calie shoved her out of the way and
raised her shield up. The door had sailed only a few feet before a huge blade
came flying out of a side wall cutting the top few inches cleanly off. Immediately
afterwards, another blade came sweeping down from the ceiling and split the
rest of the door in two. As the two fragments splintered off diagonally towards
the walls, multiple spikes shot out filling the hallway and utterly demolishing
the rest of the door. Calie kept her shield up even through everything seemed
to be at an end. One splinter of wood broke off from the pieces of the door and
fell down towards the ground. As it hit the ground multiple crossbow bolts were
fired down the hallway and slammed into Calie’s shield before falling to the
ground.
Satisfied that everything was finally finished Calie relaxed
slightly. “Gorgos punch good.” Gorgos said smiling to herself.
Calie chuckled lightly and nodded at her, “Gorgos punch was
very good.” She took a deep breath and looked over at Walker, “Any other
advice?”
“After this hallway
I’d suspect there’d be no more traps, but other than that…?” Walker shrugged at
her.
Calie nodded at him and slowly started to lead the way into the
house. No more traps went off to her relief and they quickly got to looking
around for clues of any sort. While Walker was able to quickly find the bookkeeping
he was looking for, Rede was glossing over a pile of letters nearby. Finding an
unopened one he quickly broke the seal and started to read it. Rede’s gaze
turned into a glare and he slowly, methodically started to crush the paper in
his hands. “What is it…?” Calie asked him.
“Guyil…” Rede fumed, “He’s here.”
Calie’s eyes opened up wide, “What does it say?” She asked
quickly.
“He’s part of this shadow government.” Rede hissed, “I am
going to rip his fucking heart out of his chest.” He spat out.
“Woah, man.” Walker slowly turned over from across the room,
“That’s pretty violent considering your normal stance on things. What’d he do
to you?”
Rede turned to look at him, “Tell you this. We kill his ass
and I’ll tell you.”
Walker shrugged and went back to his work, “Sounds good to
me. Think I got a lead over here on where to go next.”
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