RACHMIEL'S GAMBLE

by Random

Chapter One

Aedan had decided he had waited around long enough. Getting up to his feet he went to find the Professor. Being couped up in a cabin for the entirety of a fight with a dragon had been vexing enough. But now it had been nearly an hour since they arrived in Waterdeep, and he was still in there doing whatever he was doing. Aedan was going to find out what was going on. He knocked on the door, “Professor, you in there?”

“Yup, yup. Just waking up,” he heard Bartle respond from behind the door. Aedan could hear him moving around inside the cabin, but he couldn’t really verify if he had actually been sleeping. The door swung open and a rather disheveled looking Professor presented himself.

“May I help you?” he asked, somewhat indignantly.

“I was going to go into the city to see about trying to sell this dragon, was wondering if you wanted to come along,” Aedan asked, somewhat annoyed.

“Sure, let me just grab my book,” the Professor said as he went back into the cabin he had claimed for his study. He exited just moments later, his spellbook firmly secured under his armpit. “I’m ready,” his voice oozing a matter of factness that would be unexpected from nearly everyone else.

Aedan led the professor down the ramp, heading into the city proper. Aedan had never been to Waterdeep before, so he was a bit unsure of where he was going. Fortunately as he approached a large street full of traffic he noticed a sign that indicated a market to the left. He turned briefly to see if Bartle was still following him and found he was. They continued to make their way through the city, Bartle seemingly distracted by a number of interesting things he saw on the way.

After walking for several minutes Aedan’s eyes picked up something that was hard to not notice. To the right, just a ways off the street appeared to be a brothel. He considered Bartel, but decided that the Professor would probably be okay with him just taking a look, and a girl standing outside the building was looking directly at him in an enticing way. He cut out of the busy street towards her, a sheepish grin covering his face.

Aedan only managed to make it about half way to the enticing harlot when the ground started shaking beneath him. His instincts kicked into gear, he spread his feet beneath him to steady himself. Others in the alley did the same, and the girl disappeared into the building. There was crashing sounds as a few things that were less than secure tumbled to the ground around them. Aedan turned around to see Bartle laying on the ground, evidently having not been able to steady himself. Aedan hurried over to him to offer assistance.

“Are you okay professor?” he asked. It would do no good to have to carry the professor back to the boat, Aedan wasn’t sure he could lift the man.

Bartle put his hands beneath him and lifted himself up, “I’m fine, I’m fine.” He patted himself down as if looking for his spellbook, ceasing after he verified it was still securely held in his armpit. But Aedan could tell something was troubling the professor, who confirmed it by asking, “Did that feel familiar to you?”

Aedan’s eyes went wide in realization, it had felt familiar to him. It couldn't be happening here as well, could it? He nearly dragged the gnome back into the main street and looked up towards the market. He saw a flash of red hair up in a ponytail turn the corner about half a mile away. He only caught sight of it for half a second, but he knew it was Poppy. And he knew she was going after more trouble again, and he couldn’t let her do it alone.

“Come on Bartle, we need to catch up,” he ordered as he charged down the street.

#

Poppy followed Varyn and Zeldres towards the source of the screaming voice. As the voice was suddenly cut off she was certain it had been a man. Not a child, not a woman, a man. And he had been screaming his life away. So shortly after an earthquake, Poppy was not looking forward to discovering what it was that was causing him to scream like that.

They approached an archway leading into the City of the Dead, what served as the cemetery of the grand city. Normally there would be guards stationed at each entryway, but the guards here were missing. Poppy told herself that they may not have been necessary as it was afternoon and it had once been fashionable to picnic amidst the graves of relatives long departed. But the feeling in her gut told her that was not why the guards were not at their post.

They continued through the archway and before them was a ghoul crouching over one of two guards. The ghoul seemed engrossed in the neck of one of the guards, its teeth gnawing and gnashing at the flesh. Poppy bit back bile as she realized why the screaming had suddenly been cut off.

Varyn wasted no time, rushing up to the undead monstrosity and unleashing a flurry of attacks with his quarterstaff and fists. The blows were so fast Poppy could barely make them out. As Varyn subsided the body of ghoul fell on top of the dead guard, its head mashed into unidentifiable pulp. But Poppy could not help but notice as Varyn looked to his right and his eyes went wide with surprise. There was something terrifying around the corner, Poppy just knew it.

As Varyn was landing his blows the rest of the team was responding as well. Andriana was cutting to the left to put some more distance between her and whatever was around the corner, and keeping Varyn between them. She stuttered a bit as she rounded the corner, but continued onwards knowing that Varyn would be able to stop anything that approached. Loosing an arrow at whatever foes laid around the corner.

Sariel, ever hesitant to get too close to injury, followed close behind Andriana. He showed visible uncertainty, if not fear, as he stared down whatever was down the crossing street. Even so, he made a series of hand motions and a ball of blue light flew down, resulting in a blue flash. Poppy had never seen Sariel use this spell before, she couldn’t help but wonder what it would do.

Lilza also followed the archer, breaking out her own bow. Poppy smiled, remembering how she had given it to her shortly after they had met. She knew Lilza was using it with deadly force as she unleashed one of her arrows down the road, hearing the sickening thud as it impacted flesh.

Somehow Zeldres was always in before her, even though his plate mail couldn’t have been easy to lug around. Just another reminder of how strong Zeldres was. As he moved forward he was grasping the symbol he carried of Haela Brightaxe. A spinning whirl of what appeared to be mist stretched out for him, the ghostly shapes of spirits visible flitting around inside it. Zel never tired of this little trick of his.

It felt like it had been an eternity, but she finally rounded the corner, fear nearly overcoming her and causing her to misstep. But not too long, as she raised her hand right hand up and called upon the power of Selûne, her ring glinting as she did so. A beam of light erupted around the nearest foe she found around the corner, a ghoul that seemed to have been meandering towards the downed guards when they had entered the fray. It writhed in agony as the holy energy coursed through its unholy form. Though it felt good to injure such an insult to life, she was still concerned about the size and number of the zombie looking creatures that filled the street. That was quite the group of undead to fend off.

And it’s not like they were standing still, as one of the big zombies near her swung what must have been a morning star at Zeldres. It impacted his chest with a resounding clank, but Zeldres seemed none the worse for. Varyn was the first to respond though, deftly moving from the downed ghoul to land another whirlwind of blows at the large zombie, on the third strike using a sweeping blow of his feet to bring the enormous monster to the ground with a rumbling crash that seemed to shake the earth itself.

In the heat of the moment Poppy was surprised to see Andriana suddenly beside her, her bow loosing yet another arrow that seemed to slide around Zeldres and impact what looked like the skeletal remains of a minotaur, the arrow seeming to bounce around inside its ribcage before landing into a hunk of flesh. But this roused the interest of the monster, and though it seemed to be struggling as it roared through the mist surrounded Zeldres, it charged towards Andriana with its head bent down, the horns striking her in the chest and lifting her into the air before she managed to dislodge herself, her tunic staining with blood.

Red streaks of energy lashed past the minotaur, which seemed surprised, if it could be such a thing, that Andriana was not dead. Poppy could barely make out the streaks charged at one of the large zombies, the first hitting home, striking across its shoulder and sending it spinning a bit, while the second hit Varyn in the back. He briefly turned to see its source, and angry glare flaring at Sariel who had loosed them.

Poppy also turned to look at Sariel with a glare, but saw he was running away from something else. A skeleton had come from seemingly nowhere and was laying into poor Lilza with a sword. She saw Lilza try to pull away and loose an arrow, but knew she needed help, she called about Selûne again, her arm raising as if bringing the beam of light out of the ground, when it dissipated the skeleton was no longer there.

A loud clang brought her attention back to the massive group before her and it appeared that the zombie that Varyn had knocked down had gotten up and brought its mace down upon upon Zeldres. Did that look like Zeldres had nearly gone down to a knee? It couldn’t be, but surely it was, as the mist around him flickered for a moment, but did not go out. Zeldres must be having a hard time maintaining his concentration.

Varyn seemed to notice, and brought forth his fury upon that zombie again, the last blow causing the beast to fall to the ground, either unconscious or dead. Or at least, whatever happens to undead creatures when they stop being undead.

Andriana seemed to dance away from the minotaur in front of her, but still managing to loose an arrow, it roaring through the minotaurs eye socket. It seemed to stop moving, maybe it still needed a brain of some kind to continue moving? Something for Poppy to try to figure out afterwards. Looking at the enemies that remained, Poppy reminded herself that there might not be an afterwards.

Another arrow appeared in the side of yet another giant zombie that was next to the one Varyn had downed. At this point Poppy decided that these zombies were ogres, and that arrow had probably come from Lilza. But having seen both Varyn and Zeldres get injured, she needed to do her job, speaking the magic words, healing energy flowed from her body, and she could see Zeldres perk up a bit as whatever had happened when the ogre had thumped him with the morning star repaired itself.

She soon regretted her choice, as a giant decaying warhorse came charging out of what seemed like nowhere, rearing up and bringing its hooves down on Varyn. She was pretty sure she could see a dent in his ribcage, but he seemed to power through it, responding almost instantly with blows from his own quarterstaff. How he did it she couldn't fathom.

Suddenly a ball of fire seemed to fall down from the sky, engulfing most of the enemies before them. Poppy, Zeldres, and Varyn turned to face whatever it was that might be attacking them now, but it was only Professor Veigar, who had shown up from seemingly nowhere. Close behind him was Aedan.

But there was no time to let up, as Andriana, Lilza and Aedan all loosed their bows at the enemies that weren’t succumbing to the fire, and Sariel continued with more orange streaks of energy. At last they were down to two. What appeared to be a mummy, and one more ogre. The mummy gave a sudden burst of speed, trying to throw a swipe at Varyn. Poppy thought it looked rather weak, but guessed it had some magic behind the blow. Buy Varyn skillfully dodged away from it, whatever curse it would have wrought being narrowly avoided.

The shapes in the mist dancing around Zeldres seemed to focus on the remaining ogre, it grabbing its head and falling to the ground , no longer moving. And Varyn was swift to bring revenge upon the mummy, with his quarterstaff, which knocked a hole straight through the mummies chest. It crumpled to the ground, a pile rotted flesh and cloth.

#

Professor Veigar wasn’t quite sure what he had run into. He just knew his friends were in trouble and opened with a fireball and it seemed to provide great results. With the last of the undead nothing but smoldering ashes the crew checked their surroundings to make sure there were no other undead that might jump out of hiding. One never knew when the battle was truly over.

As Bartle was looking around he noticed there were two bodies on the ground. He briefly considered applying what he had recently been studying on them, they should make nice zombies. But he took a brief moment to consider what the townspeople would say if he was walking around a zombie of one of their guards so soon after an attack of undead. Probably not the best choice at the moment, he decided.

He noticed Poppy had run off excitedly to inspect a mummy they had downed. “Does she ever get tired?” he wondered to himself. He continued to scan the area and noticed a pile of bones just beyond the remains of the fountain. He went over to inspect them, pleased with what he had found. He could work with this. He opened his spellbook and went over the notes he had in there, making the necessary hand gestures and saying the necessary words. The bones started to rattle and reform into what resembled a human form, the skeleton raising from the ground. It looked around as if contemplating its new existence. Bartle smiled.

“Go scout the area, make sure there’s nothing else around,” Bartle ordered his new servant. Without hesitation the skeleton started wandering around the area, Bartle could only assume he was looking for other enemies, though how it would determine friend from foe he wasn’t sure.

He saw it approach the mist of Zeldres’ spell. The flit of what Bartle had come to know were spirits jumping around. This would be interesting, he thought to himself, as the skeleton entered the mist itself. Immediately a few of the flitting spirits descended upon the skeleton, the skeleton raising its head as if in anguish.

“Come back! Come back!” he screamed, not wanting to lose skeleton to the mists that obviously still regarded it as hostile. “Do you think you could put away your aura Zeldres?” he asked, annoyed.

“Mind not doing that shit? You know we don’t like it,” Zeldres scoffed back. But he relented and let his mist dissipate. “You know if we run into another set of enemies I can’t bring that back now, right?”

Poppy got up from looking at the mummy remains on the floor. “Haven’t seen a mummy in a while, kinda cool to look at,” she said with as much enthusiasm as you’d expect.

Sariel seemed a little taken aback, “You mean you've seen mummies before?”

“Yeah, haven’t you guys?” she asked, seemingly surprised at the evident rarity of the event.

“No, mummies are rather rare Poppy,” Bartle responded, trying to bring his usual cool headedness, and more importantly, his experience as a professor into the mix. “However, I have seen some research that indicates that in the future I may be able to raise a live mummy for you to study.”

If hearts could truly form in someone’s eyes you’d have seen them in Poppy’s now. “You really mean that professor? I could study a live one?” she asked, pleading through those beautiful blue eyes of her.

“I uh… sure Poppy, but it will take much research to determine how, and we have… other matters to attend to for now,” Bartle was trying to suppress a blush. Though being a gnome, he could probably play off it as just gnomish charm.

Aedan popped out from around a building. “I think I found the source, come take a look at this,” he said, sounding a little dismayed.

Everyone followed him around the corner and they saw and immediately made the connection. There was a crack in the ground near the statue of a demon. Bartle knew this was significant, and wanted to approach cautiously, but before he could even get a word out to that affect, Poppy had laid down next to the crack and was sliding her head out over it. Bartle wasn’t quite certain, but he thought he could see the sweat from the previous fight steaming off of her.

“Boy, that’s hot!” Poppy exclaimed. Of course, though she seemed to be in a slight amount of discomfort she did not remove herself from the perilous positions she found herself in. Her curiosity was going to get her killed someday. Bartle sighed, might as well figure out what she was learning as she was peering over.

“You see anything down there Poppy?” he asked, somewhat exasperated.

“It’s all dark, as far as I can see,” she responded, sounding slightly disappointed.

Bartle was almost certain she was going to lower herself down a little into the hole, but instead she called out, “Hey, we could send your skeleton down and see what it sees down there,” with a chuckle.

Bartle creased his brow, “No, I don't think it would survive such a fall. Sariel, can you see anything down there?”

Seeing that Poppy had seemed to suffer no real ill effects, Sariel peeked over the ledge. “All I can see is the bottom, looks like a rock base. I’ll send Batolomeu down.”

He got back up and went into the trance that meant he was controlling his familiar. His eyes going completely white as he did so. The bat, as usual, appeared out of nowhere, before seeming to vanish again into thin air. Bartle would have to ask how he did so, but hadn’t managed to broach the question without seeming to be intrusive. He knew Poppy would just blurt out the question, but either she wasn’t interested or she already knew.

“Seems that it’s just a chasm that ends in jagged rocks at the bottom. I do have to say it’s rather hot as we go down, but no portal, not as far as I can see,” Sariel reported as his eyes turned back to their normal brown. He turned to the statue of a demon behind him, and his eyes perked up as if he had a revelation. “This statue appears to be in a stance that is used to seal things, perhaps it had been holding these demons below, and the earthquake disturbed the seal?”

“Perhaps. Though we do know another scenario that resulted in a very similar occurrence, that seems much more threatening. Perhaps we should better warn the town?” Varyn interjected.

Poppy this time, “Well, the Acquisitions Incorporated HQ is in Waterdeep, perhaps we should stop by there and give them a good lead on a contract?”

Bartle was surprised, “You mean, the company we’re a franchise of has its headquarters here? Why didn’t you say that earlier?”

“I… thought you knew, did you not read the company handbook? Seriously.” Poppy seemed exasperated, but Bartle knew she was just acting for effect.

“Then yes, we should go in that direction,” Andriana this time, “at the very least we could should be able to bring the company a good lead.”

Poppy seemed to jump up off the ground. Bartle was again certain that one day, her curiosity would get her killed.

#

After the group walked to the Acquisitions Incorporated headquarters, a large castle on the western side of the city, Sariel found himself the first in front of the receptionist. He wasn’t quite sure why he ended up in this position, but here he was. He looked up at the receptionist, she seemed busy fiddling with a pen of some kind.

“Ahem,” Sariel uttered, just loud enough for her to hear, trying not to be rude.

The receptionist evidently heard him, and looked down at him, though her fiddling did not cease. “Yes, how may I help you?” she asked in a tone that suggested she didn’t really see why she needed to be distracted from her tasks for… this.

“Yes, hello,” Sariel spoke with as much authority as he could muster, “We are the new franchise out of Neverwinter. And we’ve come with information about a possible contract lead for the company.”

As if she had been given a gift the attitude of the receptionist changed at the mention of the Neverwinter franchise. “Oh, well let me get the franchise director straightaway, he’d be more than happy to see you,” she beamed down at Sariel and took in a good look at the rest of the group. She touched a stone in front of her, “Hello Mr. Valrora, we have representatives of the Neverwinter Franchise here to see you.” She discarded the stone and paused for a moment, presumably listening for a response, then picked up another stone, “Yes, now.” She threw the second stone into a container with the first. There were five other stones there.

Within moments an elf in a business suit approached from down the hall. He half yelled down at them, voice booming with joy, “Why hello there! It’s good to finally meet you, I’m though I did not expect to see you so, soon. Please, come with me into my office.” He seemed genuinely excited to greet them as he led them through the passageways to what Sariel could only assume was his office. He looked back at the rest of the group to see how they were taking things. Poppy seemed incredibly bored, but Aedan seemed surprisingly alert. The rest were somewhere in between.

After everyone had been gathered into the room the elf introduced himself, “Hello, I am Kymil Valrora, Director of Franchise Relations. I didn’t expect to meet you so soon. I figured you would be dealing with the issues in Neverwinter. Our expectation that you secure that contract was one of the reasons we gave you the, ah, discount for your first month.” He smiled the smile of a businessman that wasn’t sure if his deal would work out as he had hoped.

Sariel, realizing what was about to happen, quickly spoke to clarify, “We have come to Waterdeep to acquire supplies, and to get information from the Magic Guild. They had setup the barrier in the first place and we believed they would be best able to explain to us how things worked. In fact, we have contracted a small group of Magic Guild employees to accompany us to Neverwinter to diagnose the failing of the barrier.”

At the mention of the Magic Guild Sariel could tell that Kymil’s opinion was decreasing by the expression on his face. The smile seemed to become that much more forced. At the mentioning of hiring the Magic Guild to accompany them the smile disappeared all together.

“You were to secure the contract after showing the Magic Guild had failed to uphold their contract with the city of Neverwinter. It seems incredible that you would seem to think that bringing Magic Guild members along for a free ride to Neverwinter would help you in that task,” the disturbance in his voice was nearly palpable.

“Ah, right. You see, we had actually wanted to bring the Magic Guild members to have the city see them fail at diagnosing the problem, much as the local representatives of the Magic Guild did before us,” Sariel quickly countered, not wanting this interaction with the Director of Franches Relations to go too much more poorly.

Kymil seemed to think over this for a moment, as if processing what was being said, then his worried face turned to an excited one. “That’s the old Acq Inc spirit! Going to roll those MagGuild guys up there and really drag their faces through the mud. Breva said there was something about you he really liked, and I’m starting to see it. This will really stick it to them MagGuild guys!”

He was beaming now, his excitement was clearly visible to Sariel, who was somewhat happy to have stumbled upon a secondary explanation that was acceptable, as opposed to actually bringing the Magic Guild representatives along for them to explain what was going on. But no need to clarify that now.

“Yes, but that’s not what we came here to discuss. We came with a business opportunity for Acquisitions Incorporated itself,” Sariel finally managed to communicate.

“Oh, really? Well, given how efficient you seem to be we would be neglectful to turn away an opportunity presented by your fledgling franchise.”

“Yes, we just dispatched of some undead in the City of the Dead. Their patterns and appearance was incredibly similar to what we were experiencing in Neverwinter, and we think that Acquisitions Incorporated may be able to get a contract with the city to protect form such an occurrence here. At this point, we are confident similar will happen, and if you had prepared armed guards ahead of time you could prevent a disaster,” Sariel explained.

An awkward silence seemed to fill the room as Kymil seemed to be waiting for something else to be said. Poppy filled this void with, “And make money by protecting the people, at their expense, of course.”

Kymil seemed satisfied, “Oh yes, of course. That is the leg up, we will dispatch our contractors to the Lords that manage the areas near the City of the Dead at once. And negotiate good terms in the process. Oh what a juicy lead you have granted us. We will of course offer you a portion of the profits. Off your next fee, which I will look forward to receiving in three months!”

“Ah yes, of course,” said Sariel, “I thank you for the reminder.”

“Oh, one thing, before we leave,” Aedan interjected as he could tell Kymil was getting ready to shoo the lot of them out of the room, “You wouldn’t by chance know where we could sell some dragon? We killed one on the way here and were thinking we could turn a pretty copper on it. But we’re low for connections here, surely Acquisitions Incorporated would know someone we could sell it to.”

“Oh, you have been a busy franchise,” Kymil intoned, somewhat surprised by the mention that they had slain a dragon, and seemingly for free! “Well, we have connections with an armorer on Head Lane, True as Steel I believe they’re called. I imagine they’d be very interested in the scales. For the rest, I suppose you could go to a butcher? We are associated with one on Bazaar Street, The Drawing Knife. I’ve never had dragon meat before, wonder what it would taste like.”

“Now now, I must get runners out to negotiate contracts. It’s been good to see you. I look forward to recieving your first franchise fee, three months! Don’t forget it, we went out of our way with the two month delay to help you get established in Neverwinter, lots of business to be had in the North. Don’t make us regret it!” and he shooed the group out of his office. As the Sariel closed the door he could see Kymil picking up some another stone, very similar to the one picked up by the receptionist.

“Well, where should we go first?” Poppy asked, her ballot box appearing seemingly out of nowhere.

#

Seeing as Aedan had been pretty insistent on selling the meat itself, he led the rest of the group into The Drawing Knife. He looked around, various cuts of meat were on display. Some in bags, some hanging from the ceiling, some were beef, some were chicken, Aedan was pretty sure that one was pork. A good variety. But Aedan was pretty sure dragon meat was rare, and he was looking forward to finally making some profit with it. He approached a man that was busy cutting some meat behind the main counter. He didn’t see anyone else around, and figured this must be the shop owner.

“Why hello there, I had some meat I was looking at selling, was wondering if you would be interested in it,” Aedan said, pleased with himself for kicking off this endeavor.

“Oh sure, we sell all kinds of meat here, what kind you got? Beef usually goes pretty well? Maybe some unicorn? We don’t get that too often, though that might be because lots of people don’t like killing them,” he said, the last bit being added as he looked the party over and determined they were a group of adventurers. He didn’t stop laying slices into the slab of meat before him.

Aedan smiled, this was going to be good.

“No, we have dragon meat.”

The cutting stopped and the butchers eyes grew wide in apparent surprise. Aedan was even more pleased, he must have gotten some incredibly rare meat, and nearly dying was going to pay off.

“Yeah, we have a a whole bunch of it, maybe 5 tons?” Aedan was trying not to brag.

Andriana interrupted, “Probably more like 2 tons, we didn’t kill a 5 ton dragon.”

The butchers eyes just got wider, and finally he slammed his butchers knife on the wooden counter, it slicing neatly into the wood and generating a deep gouge where it remained stuck.

“You realize that bringing dragon flesh here could put me out of business?” he nearly yelled.

Aedan was stunned by the outburst. Put him out of business? He was about to formulate the question of why, but the butcher seemed to know he didn’t know and was already providing the answer.

“Dragon flesh will attract other dragons, and we don’t need dragons attacking the city. If someone knew I had dragon flesh here they may run me out of town,” this time the butcher had seemed to regain his composure, but he still seemed angry about the situation. For a moment Aedan was worried the butcher may try to report them to the local law enforcement. He didn’t need a run-in with them.

Aedan was seeing the opportunity slip him by, but he couldn’t let it go, he had to make money somehow, “Say, you mentioned unicorn meat earlier. What if you passed off the dragon meat as unicorn meat? I bet you could charge a nice price for that, and people wouldn’t even know it was dragon. You win, and I win, what do you say?”

The butcher gave Aedan a curious look, and Aedan could tell he was going over the idea in his head. After a few seconds he finally said, a little quieter than you’d expect, “Makes sense, you bring the meat, discretely, to the back of the shop. There’s an alleyway. I’ll meet you there. Does that work?”

Aedan gave a business like grin, “Of course it does, I will see you shortly.”

He turned to round the group up, and they headed out together towards True as Steel.

#

As they walked away from The Drawing Knife the group quietly discussed what had occurred there. Aedan seemed a little hesitant to lead the next discussion considering what he had just walked into at the butcher, so Andriana attempted to step up. As they approached the shop she gave it a look around. It looked like a standard blacksmith shop. It was a little surprising to see all of the elements of a blacksmith in the city, with the corresponding fire hazard, but there were many barrels of water throughout the place, as if that was designed to prevent it from spreading.

Seeing someone wave away another customer, she guessed that was the man in charge and approached, “Hello sir, I had something of interest I’d like to… sell you… if you’re interested.”

She added pauses, trying not to walk into a legal trap like Aedan seemed to.

The bartender seemed to increase up his guard a bit at the odd pauses, but didn’t seem too suspicious, “Yeah sure, what’d yah have that might be intresting?”

“We’ve slain a dragon, and thought you might be interested in purchasing its scales. I imagine there’s a number of interesting things you could make with it,” she said, realizing that Dragon Scale Armor existed, and surely this blacksmith would know about it.

“Oh, why didn’t yah say so? Yeah I’d love to have me some dragon scales. Do’ya have ‘em with yah right now?”

“Well, no, we would have to go get them, but maybe you could tell us how much you’d be willing to offer?”

He looked a little sheepish as he responded, “No ma’am, I’d need to see the goods b’fore I bought ‘em. Dragon scales that be damaged near useless. Can’t be offering a price sight unseen.”

“Very well, we will return with the scales later today. It’s a pleasure doing business with you,” Andriana said, preparing to leave.

“You as well,” the blacksmith said as Andriana headed out the door to meet the rest of the group that was waiting outside.

“Well, that went as well as could be expected I guess, now all we have to do is go get the dragon,” Andriana reported.

#

On the way back to the ship the group picked up three carts and horses. One of the carts they bought outright, the others they rented. A permanent cart to keep with them on the boat would be good for future business ventures. Most in the group were sure of it, and Zeldres could tell Poppy was disappointed that she didn’t even need to break out her ballot box.

While they had been negotiating over the carts there had been another earthquake. The group had known what this would mean, but were expecting Acquisitions Incorporated to deal with it. They had more pressing matters to deal with.

With their carts behind them, the group stood on the deck of their ship looking at the dragon carcass. It hadn’t seemed to start smelling yet, but they were pretty sure that would change as soon as they started to open it up. So they had to work quickly.

“Anyone have any experience cutting apart at dragon? I think it might be too heavy to take back whole in one cart, and we can’t exactly sling it across both carts without giving it away,” Bartle asked no one in particular.

Poppy kneeled by the dragon, as if sizing it up. She turned to Zeldres. “Zelly, can I borrow your axe for a teensy moment?” she inquired, batting her beautiful eyes as if that would have any effect on him.

“Uh, sure, here you go,” Zeldres responded as he offered the battle axe over. Zeldres wasn’t even sure if she could carry it.

And as if confirming it, she seemed to be struggling to hold it up, nearly dragging it to the dragon.

“This will just take a second,” she said. Smiling as she looked like she was prepping to heft the battleaxe, clearly with much difficulty.

Zeldres reach his hand up, wanting to prevent her from hurting herself, at least physically. But before he could say anything the axe became a blur in the air. As if by magic Poppy seemed completely in her element, the axe swung to and fro around the dragon. Wherever it moved a clean cut in the dragon appeared, the skin the scales seemed to be attached to slid right off, the muscles of the dragon cut into nice small pieces. The organs somehow seeming to group themselves together.

In just a few moments the dragon had been partitioned into separated piles of meat, organs, and scales. And in the middle was Poppy, covered head to toe in dragons blood. She turned to face Zeldres, and he could see a fire in her eyes that he wasn’t sure he had ever seen in another person.

She offered back the axe, it seemed completely steady in her hands now, and somehow, Zeldres had no idea, it was completely devoid of blood.

Poppy wiped a little bit of blood away from her forehead before it fell into her eyes.

“I’m going to go below deck for a moment, clean up, you know? Can you load these into the carts?” she asked, somehow her voice suggesting nothing was out of the ordinary.

Zeldres could only nod as Poppy turned and walked, confident as she always was. The rest of the party could only stare at what looked like a completely happy girl, completely covered in blood, disappear into the hold of their ship.

#

The party started loading the different types of dragon remains into the different carts. Shortly before the task was completely Poppy returned from below decks. Somehow she appeared completely clean. There was not a trace of blood in her, and Lilza could tell that some of the fire had left her eyes, as if part of her had left after she had been cleansed of the blood. Definitely something to figure out later. But for now there was loading of the carts to do. Poppy helped once she returned, and in no time at all they had loaded the three carts.

As they were getting ready to depart, Bartle brought up to the group, “Based on the rate of these earthquakes, we may end up in the middle of town while they start getting to fast if we don’t split up. Maybe we should split up and each of us go to a shop to sell our goods?”

Poppy’s ballot box appeared out of nowhere, and the everyone in the group seemed to moan as they proceeded to write their agreement or disagreement on the ballot and slip it in. Poppy didn't seem to want to waste time debating it. In just a matter of seconds she had counted the ballots, “The group has decided to proceed in splitting up, by a vote of seven to two.”

Aedan volunteered to take the meat and Zeldres volunteered to accompany him. Andriana was natural to take the dragon scales and was accompanied by Varyn. Sariel and Bartle would take the organs and try to find an alchemist. That left Poppy and Lilza without an assigned task.

As the rest of the group pulled away with their carts Poppy turned to Lilza, “Would you like to have some fun while they’re out? We got some time to kill?” A devilish grin flashed across her face.

Lilza nodded yes in agreement and before she could do anything else Poppy had grabbed her by the hand, jumped up, and was leading her through the center of town. It did not take long for Lilza to derive that Poppy was taking them to a rather large castle they had passed a number of times while going to and from the markets.

As they approached the entrance Lilza could see the guards standing there and had a feeling they were not going to get far. That feeling was compounding when the guards crossed their spears and started asking questions.

“What ya doing here?” the one of the left demanded, his voice full of authority.

Lilza turned to Poppy, who seemed completely unfazed.

“I am Poppy Edgewood from the city of Neverwinter, and would like entrance to the castle,” she barked, as if giving an order.

“Hey now, who?” the guard started to ask, but Poppy presented her hand, and on it was a ring Lilza had never really payed attention to before. Lilza now noticed that it contained some kind of symbol on it. When the gaurds noticed it too they seemed to react instantly.

“Of course, milady, you may come right in,” they stepped to the side, spears uncrossing and going into a formal position.

Lilza tried to give an inquisitive look to Poppy, but she just beamed a smile back at her. “You hungry?” she asked. Lilza nodded and Poppy led her into the castle.

After about 15 minutes of joviality, involving cookies, cupcakes, a turkey leg, accidentally shooting a guard with an arrow, the pair emerged from the castle again, laughing amongst themselves as they strode past the two guards.

Lilza seemed to think one of them was eying the turkey leg she was carrying, but on seeing Poppy again stood at erect attention. Lilza stifled another laugh as they headed back to the ship.