By the light of the single torch mounted on the wall and the thin wax candle that he'd brought down from his own office, Bann watched Kronmyr throw six point star shuriken at a battered round hay target on the other side of the room. That Kronmyr could reliably hit the faded bullseye was normal. The impressive part was that he was doing so while precariously balancing his weight on a chair tipped back onto two legs, after drinking a third of his second pint of Dwarven ale for the evening.
Bann cleared his throat after the last of the sharp pieces of metal had been shied away from the Drow's off hand and into the solid dull red circle painted onto the hay. "I asked first," he said calmly.
Kronmyr took his feet off the table before him and allowed all four feet of the chair to rest on the floor. In the quiet, he drank from his flagon. "You did," he said gustily when he put the flagon down. "But, you waited until I ran out of pointy objects to split your throat with to remind me."
"If you're checking whether or not I've devolved into a blithering idiot, I regret to inform you that I've not yet so regressed," Bann answered with a raised eyebrow. "And remind me- why do you not have more chairs down here?"
"I throw things. A lot. So I don't get much company," Kronmyr laughed lazily. "Something-something-dangerous- something- something-too-dim-down-here-something. Why did your gods make your eyes so damn weak?"
Bann rolled his eyes. "Funny, I wonder the same thing every time you wince in the sun."
With a few more booze-thickened giggles, the Drow backed up until the back of his chair was nearly touching the wall behind him. The sound of the wood scraping at the floor made Bann feel as though his teeth were rattling in his jaw. He took the hint, and setting his candle beside Kronmyr's flagon, sat on the right side of the stone desk. He said nothing, but crossed his arms expectantly.
"Ah, right; strange requests or reactions," Kronmyr groaned, crossing his own arms and closing his eyes. "Grumbling in the ranks; dull roar is that you have some trust to earn back. A few opinions are oddly strong- Celeste saw a vision owing to getting herself nearly dead, so she asked for leave as soon as she came back from last week's caravan job, to think about things. Don't let on that I told you that; she told everyone else that her mum is dying- or her sister- one of the two. Nibri feels 'uncomfortable' about how similar the route is to what used to be our running route."
"He's not wrong," Bann noted with a small shrug. "Had I not had sufficient reasonable doubt that Illance would have had nothing to do with the client, I would have refused the job."
"Oh, 'reasonable doubt' be damned," Kronmyr huffed, opening his eyes briefly. "Nib's gone around telling people that Illance must be behind the caravans. I had to stand my good name against his slander, and even after I did, a lot of the old guard found every other job to want to do but that one. Half this week's crew is new blood."
"Your good name is worth more than mine?" Bann jibed. He pushed out a scoffing laugh and shook his head, looking casually down into Kronmyr's flagon. "Now that is a problem."
"Says the man who had been keeping duplicate books and nearly completely separate operations like the most professional of street thugs," Kronmyr answered. He opened his eyes again and leaned forward to reclaim his ale.
Bann watched warily as Kronmyr savoured the peaty brew. "First of all, the cargo is straight coin, not hounds or people. Second of all, we're not the mules, just the protection. Things were going well until the coffers were found to be light. As I understand it, the shipper accused the recipients, who accused the mules, who are apparently now accusing us."
"A fine fucking mess," Kronmyr growled nearly directly into the flagon. "Unauthorized fingers in the cargo get cut off."
"Unauthorized fingers that have gotten themselves caught in the cargo, yes," Bann noted. "Which is why I'm here."
"Oh, I'm offended twice over," Kronmyr sighed, taking another sip of ale. He scooted forward and put his feet back on the desk in order to lean back on the back two legs of his chair again. "If I were going to run a skimming operation, it would have been months, not mere weeks, before anyone noticed it. And as for someone stealing without my knowing about it- you smoke me out of the street racket and watch me turn your paladins into rogues, all the time thinking some no-blood Human or houseless Elf is gonna out-stealth me?"
"Myr, be serious," Bann demanded, leaning forward slightly. "We're fully above board again; this is a serious threat to our ability to secure new business."
"You're fully above board again," Kronmyr corrected, looking Bann straight in the eyes over the rim of his flagon. "You hired me to teach your people how to get dirty, but you never stated that you would ever need me to come completely clean."
Bann said nothing, but straightened up and stared at Kronmyr in a manner very recently learned from his dogmaster.
A few silent moments passed.
"Ah, you can fuck off and all." Kronmyr again put all four legs of the chair on the floor, spread his legs wide, and put his flagon on the floor in front of him." Who're the 'to' and 'from' parties of this fuckery anyway?" he muttered, scrubbing his hand on his pants to get the wetness of the flagon off of it.
"Privileged information," Bann replied. He uncrossed his arms and leaned forward to put his hands on the edge of the table.
The conversation dropped into another well of quietness, and the two simply looked at each other. Kronmyr first very slowly tilted his head to the side with raised eyebrows, then brought his hands down onto his thighs with a resounding slap.
"You're telling me that we just crawled our way out from under one of the most manipulative men in the country, and you didn't check on who the fuck is behind a matching set of dead drops?" The Drow rolled his eyes dramatically. "How can you claim to be above board when the client clearly isn't? The next time you take a contract with or for someone whose identity is 'privileged information', either tell me or your pet mage to check on them, for fuck's sake."
"I took the job from a northeastern merchant who would rather I kept his identity quiet," Bann argued with a shrug. "His coin is good, but his Common isn't; it was choppy, and so steeped in some one of the Elven tongues that I struggled to hold an honest business conversation with him. Illance wouldn't let himself be represented by the likes of that."
Kronmyr blinked at Bann, comically looked down into his flagon, then looked back up at Bann. "It's hard to tell which one of us is smashed. Ferrying coin from one dead drop to another at the word of some foreign surface Elf- and that's if he really is foreign. Accents can be played like any other cheap holiday pageant bit."
Bann rolled his shoulders and, in a wildly uncharacteristic show of weariness, dropped his head. "Look, I know the whole situation was shady; I knew it before I took the job. But we have it, so now we have to figure out who's making a mess of our doing it," he said with a begrudging sigh. When he looked back into the Drow's face, the pure intensity of his gaze seemed to change the atmosphere of the room. "Since you're sure it's none of ours- and I'm very inclined to agree- help me prove it."
"I'll tail the cargo," Kronmyr agreed seriously. "If the hells open, claim that you didn't know what I was doing; people'll buy it."
"A good idea," Bann mused in a low tone. "But I- like so many others- am considerably more immediately interested in the sender than the receiver."
"Mordy," Kronmyr shrugged simply. He took a pull of his ale as though the conversation were already over.
"Mordren has been... let's say... 'occupied' as of late," Bann groaned softly. "I don't want him handing this off to one of his wife's available proteges, or the Shadar-kai."
"You can prevent the former situation by making it worth his while to keep the job to himself, but the latter one's not gonna materialize," Kronmyr said, the words voiced over a satisfied gust of ale scented breath. "Rasha's a key element in the caravan detail; the way she's working that chain now is just chef's kiss beautiful. And every moment she isn't on a trail, Mordy himself has got her perfecting someone else's handwriting. She's about as good as he is."
"Peacefully earning her keep, I suppose?" Bann smiled grimly, dropping his head again.
Kronmyr chuckled knowingly. "She's not your thief, or we'd have known it before anyone else. There are folks whose eyes are so comfortable resting on her that they itch when they look anywhere else. Celeste, for one. You'd think they were sisters- they even trade clothes now."
"And why precisely do you know that, you scoundrel?" Bann teased, tossing the stray thought out of his mind. "Although to be fair, it's good to know about both of them, for now. Especially after the report from Kazmiir."
"Oh yeah- he's threatening to quit the gig over that," Kronmyr replied before taking another drink. "He so much as accused me of trying to overthrow you, or trying to make a new company altogether. Now, I'll tell you what I told him- I don't have extra hands stashed somewhere. Greatness gets imitated, simple as that. If they had been the real deal, they would have been tougher to kill."
"It's too convenient of a time to get admirers," Bann admitted. "I've been thinking of having Mordy take a look at that."
"You think the copycats are somehow connected to the thieves," Kronmyr stated flatly.
Bann touched a finger to his nose with a nod. "Oh, not somehow connected- directly connected, with Illance as the link. He promised he'd ruin us, remember. It's just that since he's been disgraced to a worse degree than we have, there's only so much he can do to us and go unnoticed at it."
"So one set of idiots, either the false Sunfire or the mules, could be Illance stooges," Kronmyr muttered thoughtfully. He took another drink from his flagon and set it back down on the floor. "My money would be on the false Sunfire- making us out to be not in control of our own people isn't the worst of plans he could have hatched. I'll let Kazmiir know that I'm traveling with him, but that he is to keep that to himself, and to change nothing about the lineup or the route."
"I appreciate it and shall take my leave," Bann grunted as he turned around on the table. "Were I you, I'd leave the sharp objects in the target until you sober up."
"He says, knowing that I don't have any more to throw at his head for the disrespect," Kronmyr tossed back, picking up his flagon again.
Bann retrieved his candle and began heading up the stairs, only to find none other than Mordren standing on the middle stair. The mage leaned on the wall casually, as though he'd been there for some time, and smiled coyly when he caught Bann's eyes.
"As it turns out, I am rarely so 'occupied' as to not notice my name falling from those traitor lips," he said warmly. "Still bitter about my having caught you in your game with the tool you gave me, eh?"
"Possible slave or experimentation fodder trafficking was not a game, and Rasha is not a tool," Bann corrected as calmly as possible.
"Oh, don't be like that," Mordren teased. "Shall we walk and talk, or shall we both sit on Myr's desk?"
"Come the fuck back down here, for all the hells' sake," Kronmyr called. "Talking in the middle of the stairwell as though echoes didn't exist. Pair of idiots."
Mordren blew out Bann's candle and whispered a single word that meant nothing to Bann. A bright orb, about the size of the middle of someone's palm, appeared between the two of them and slowly rotated as it cast light in all directions. Wordlessly, the two traveled back down the stairs and into Kronmyr's austere space.
In Bann's brief absence, Kronmyr had recovered all of his shuriken. They gleamed like fresh snowflakes in the light of Mordren's cantrip. The Drow himself was once again seated comfortably with his booted feet on the stone desk and only two legs of his chair on the floor.
"Say what you're going to say," he smiled wickedly, again looking at Bann over the edge of his flagon.
"What is it about you that compels you to strand yourself in tenuous positions?" Mordren asked as though he were truly concerned. "Rooftops, the edges of tables, the back legs of chairs- do you never just rest anywhere plainly, like other mortals have managed to do for millenia?"
"Did you never consider partnering with someone who would have enjoyed breeding with you, like other mortals have managed to do since the dawn of fucking time?" Kronmyr countered, opening his arms into a shrug. "What is it about you that compels you to entangle your sharp-tempered, highly sensual self with overly-pious or half-dead women?"
"Leave Ivonne out of this," Bann warned. In response, the Drow dropped his arms as though they were made of lead. "Let's focus on the theft and the copycatting-"
"Yes, let's, since I've been so very graciously nominated to determine the sender," Mordren interrupted, still smiling a little too sweetly. "I need that so-called foreign merchant within about sixty feet of me. I also need materials and time, and you should pay me for both. Shockingly enough, I cannot simply pick an unknown person's brain, nor do I actually want to."
"Can fuck off and all," Kronmyr scoffed so quietly that neither Human truly heard him, but Bann side eyed him anyway.
"I haven't met with the merchant since I accepted the job," he admitted once he'd restored his focus to Mordren. "The accusation of theft came via courier."
"You're dreadfully charming when you have to be," Mordren purred. "Think of a reason to get them out here and send it back with another courier. That is, unless you don't even know who to send it back to?"
Kronmyr silently put a hand to his mouth as though he were utterly shocked, but descended into snide laughter almost immediately.
"Martael Dhourt- but that information does not leave this room," Bann reported with a degree of irritation. "Again, I haven't lost all my natural sense. I just know that jobs have been hard to come by owing to having just appeared in court."
"Aw, none of the fancy fops have a problem taking tea with a treasonous fucker, provided he has enough coin," Kronmyr sneered. Once he'd picked up his flagon again, he leaned back and closed his eyes. "All the time, pretending they're so much better than the families and matrons..."
Mordren made a face of discomfort that wasn't entirely false. "Say that name again."
"Martael Dhourt. Some sort of Elven merchant from the Dalelands somewhere," Bann answered wearily. "He noted that he didn't want his name getting around due to opposition to his work in Freed Daerlun."
Mordren shook his head. "He probably doesn't want his name getting around because it isn't real. I've never heard a married Elven variant name paired with a Dwarven name."
"Of all the grudges between races that I've ever head of, I don't think Elven and Dwarvenkind numbered among them. At least no grudge of any note," Bann began tentatively, squinting his eyes at Mordren. "Further, half-Elves exist."
Mordren frowned and uttered a short noise of disgust. "Most bipedal races cannot casually interbreed; Humans were created with a bit more reproductive flexibility. But that's beside the point- many Elves have very specific naming conventions, and the cacophony you gave voice to doesn't adhere to any of them. It sounds filthy even to me. Myr, that didn't strike your ear as strange at all?"
"You asking me that because to you, my ears are as sharp as any other Elf?" Kronmyr snorted, opening one eye to look at Mordren. "Marriage variants and that rot- fuck should I know about that? We don't rearrange vowels and add on special syllables."
"You do add special syllables-" Mordren began to argue.
Kronmyr opened his eyes and allowed his chair to hit the ground with a thundering slam. The tiniest flecks of ale foam escaped his flagon. "I am the Drow, not you; I know what the fuck do we add or don't we. What matrons do with their daughters and consorts is one thing. The rank and file, the likes of me and mine, we just take the damn name of the damn house we're sent to, got it?"
Bann made the tiniest tipping gesture toward Kronmyr's flagon with his head, pulling off the worn leather band that held his hair back as a cover for the intended indication.
Mordren took a very deep breath, releasing it without a sound. "Got it," he said tightly, just as much for Bann as for Kronmyr.
Kronmyr took a long pull of his ale, finally finishing it. He put his flagon back on the desk first, then his feet. Tipping back on the chair's two back legs, he sent a stealthily recovered shuriken speeding past Bann's left ear. It ricocheted off the stone wall and buried itself into the top of the back of the straw target, and Bann knew better than to believe that the thing had been imprecisely aimed.
"You can fuck off and all," Kronmyr grumbled, allowing a belch to bubble out of him as punctuation.
Bann looked sharply up at the Drow. "I have to get coin to pay you all, is the only reason I took this-"
"Fuck that," Kronmyr interrupted with quiet intensity. "Finding gigs, finding buyers- hard to do after getting your charter pissed on in public. And because it's hard, one would think you'd have asked for help from the beginning. Called in favours. Reached out to old alliances. But no, you didn't, because another thing that Humans were created with more of than most other races that walk on two fucking feet is pants-on-head stupidity."
After a few seconds of dead silence, Bann chuckled weakly and looked down into his hands to consider the leather band. Worn as it was, it seemed as though it had always been a plain, weary brown, but Bann remembered when it had been dyed another colour. As though his brief musing on that past meant nothing, he reached back and began tying his hair back the way it had been. "I'm wondering if they left that suzale in cask quite long enough."
"Fuck suzale," Kronmyr spat back. "Dwarven ale, or hang the porter."
"If I may be so bold as to sharpen Myr's point... you might relax your standards a bit," Mordren ventured as he watched Bann's thick fingers. "The sooner you stop thinking of yourself as an exiled swordcaptain and start thinking of yourself as a free mercenary, the better off all of us will be. We've never profited much by being the operation just shy of an extra Purple Dragon garrison, and now that there's the stain of open court on the charter, we might use it to the advantage of attracting heretofore hesitant lower class clientele. We can still operate cleanly, but we can do so on a lower rung of society, and command as much coin as the market will bear for the privilege of having things done with more efficiency and less unnecessary bloodshed than the clutches of disorganized thugs that run the alleyways."
"That type of business goes to Coalwater," Bann warned. "I have no intention of competing with that couple- what were their names?"
"Yulian and Dortana, and we're not telling people not to go to them," Mordren replied gently. "We're simply giving them the option to come to us."
Bann rubbed the back of his neck and scoffed. "Well, before we go taking work in low places, let's figure out the- I like how you put this- the 'to' and 'from' of the current shady predicament."
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