Dinadan Noir V: Swagger

After a good ponder, I decided it was time to put on my swagger suit and head back to Crypt. Broad-brimmed hat, leather jerkin and leggings. I thought about an eye-patch for effect, but decided against it. Dagger and broadsword both on my belt, humming and glowing. The Drak was too unsubtle for a job like this. Enchanted blades would have to do. Just because I knew I wasn’t a particularly brilliant swordsman didn’t mean others would. I also managed to get a brace of throwing knives stashed about my person, some in obvious places, some not. The point was to look as dangerous as possible. Never mind that I’d sung my way literally through Pandemonium before. Some folks won’t pay attention unless you point sharp metal bits their way.

Playing the bravo is good fun. Bards don’t often get to throw their weight around—not that I’m heavy, mind. Whip-thin and resilient, that’s me. Anyway. There’s something entertaining about staring down bruisers who, if they stopped to think about it, could pound you flat in a fistfight, about making a hard line of your mouth and steel of your eyes when—inside—you’re laughing at the gulls. If push came to shove, of course, I’d be chucking spells, not knives. And part of the reason I could pull off the bluff was that it wasn’t really a bluff.

Digression is a professional hazard.

I put on my swagger suit and willed myself to Igneous. If you’ve never been there, keep it that way. The place is all twisted windows, crooked walls, and the muted stink of death. And chilly. I half-think that’s why so many undead call the place home. It’s always cool in Igneous, not quite cold, but cool enough to slow down rot. Never mind that the place is crawling with necromancers who’ll patch up your lifeless husk to your exact specifications. I drew plenty of stares just for being on the living side of the grave. I stared right back, a hairsbreadth grin letting them know I meant business.

Igneous is an easy place to get jumped, and a hard place to get found. It took me the better part of an hour just to pick the right bar, and I dropped two cutpurses and a gorgon mugger in that span. All, might I add, without recourse to a single blast of sound. I might not have been a brilliant swordsman, but I was good enough to take down gutter trash. The fellows in the Worm’s Abode were a step above gutter trash, though, and I made sure I picked out all the exits when I walked into the place.

There’s something obvious but indefinable about a Family-run establishment. Or at least the Family-run establishments that also catered to their own. Organized crime is different on every world, mind—in Suthnas, if you walk into a place and a bunch of similar-tinted djinn sharing hookahs turn simultaneously to stare you down, you know you need to watch your step. The Family on Crypt is a mixed-up lot. More than a few dwarves, the occasional drow, various Elder races…it was more about their bearing. Even the squid-faced yaag-nesh walked or floated with a certain swagger that the unaffiliated criminals never managed. Judging by the looks and the expressions that greeted me when I walked in the door, at least half the bodies in the Abode were Family, and the rest were probably in the Family’s pocket.

It was exactly the kind of trouble I was looking for.

I sauntered up to the bar as if I owned the place. The barkeep was the tallest dwarf I’d ever seen. He came all the way up to my chin. Never mind that his arms were as thick as my chest, I could stare down at him. And I did. “Whiskey. And don’t try and pass off your mushroom spirits on the goat.” The dwarf grunted and fished a bottle out from a dusty cabinet behind him. Behind me, silence gathered like a storm. Somebody was going to get hurt soon, and the dwarf clearly expected it to be me.

I turned around, and in a gesture I’m shamed to admit I’d practiced numerous times, thumbed my sword two inches out of its scabbard. Props make a costume, and the blessed light even two inches of the enchanted steel shed had the desired effect. “Anybody really want to see the rest of it?”

Somebody would, I knew. The weakest, or the stupidest, or the one who felt like he was going to lose face. Turned out to be another dwarf. I was disappointed; he didn’t try to say anything witty, just pulled a broad-bladed knife and charged…from across the room. Just what I needed. I made a show of sipping the whiskey before I finished drawing the sword. When the dwarf got close enough, I spat whiskey in his eyes, stepped, and jammed my sword into his side in about as long as it takes to tell it. He was whimpering and working on crawling away as I wiped the blade on his cloak, sheathed it, and deliberately turned my back on the crowd again.

“I’m looking for Aagren,” I said to nobody in particular.

“Aagren’s a tough one to find, goat.” the barkeep rumbled. “What makes ye think he’d let himself get found by you?”

“What,” I said slowly, “makes you think I’d let him stay hid?”

The dwarf (the one who wasn’t busy bleeding out) grunted. “He’s got an office on Biotite, south of Fifth. Storefront’s a cobbler.”

“Thanks. Sorry for the mess.” I slapped a platinum piece on the bar, wondering how much ahead of me word would get to Aagren, and who might try and take more than a pale coin as payment for inconvenience.