Brewing Bad Ch. 54-55

Ch. 54 - What Now?

He found the three of them, along with a few other toughs and laborers, in the cider house. It was obvious that everyone knew that something had happened, but they had no idea what. 

“Alright boys, drop what you’re doing and go grab some dinner,” Lucas said. “We’ll let you know if there’s going to be any late night work after we talk through all the recent developments.”

The men filled out. Most seemed worried or at least curious about what the commotion was all about, but some seemed eager at the idea of putting in some overtime. Whether that was because they wanted to fight or they just wanted the paycheck that went with it, he couldn’t say, but it was good news either way, and he hoped that the enthusiasm lasted if the shit hit the fan.

Once they were gone and the door was shut, Kar’gandin immediately asked, “What did ye do, lad? You were supposed to be off making new friends, not bringing home new enemies.”

Lucas sighed, grabbed one of the chairs at the table where the rest of them were sitting, and then swung it around to sit on it backward as he leaned on the chair’s back. Then after a dramatic pause, he said, “Well, the bad news is that we’re still in the crosshairs of the damn Whisperers, but the good news not only do we have a hostage we can ask questions of, but I think I figured out how they’ve been keeping tabs on us.”

After that, Lucas laid out everything. He started with the visit to the Corrin estate, then he told them about the unexpected confrontation on the road, and how he’d figured out that she’d probably hitched a ride with him to learn more information rather than leave it at a warning, before he told them how he found her with the flower and the struggle in the yard that followed before he got her under control. 

“She cut down the tree… with a wand?” Hura’gh asked with a bloodthirsty grin. “Brutal. Imagine if she’d aimed it at your head.”

“I don’t have to imagine,” Lucas responded. “That’s where she was aiming before I grabbed her wrist and twisted. It could have just as easily been the cooking staff that was standing nearby or the second floor of the manor. I had no idea things like this could be so powerful.”

As he spoke, he set the wand on the table. Adin immediately picked it up, and Lucas said, “Be careful where you point that fucking thing, okay?” as he toyed with the ring. It was too small for any of his fingers, though he managed to get it onto his pinky, but it didn’t do anything, and after he confirmed that everyone else could see him, he took it off and set it down, too.

“So, ye said you knew how they were spyin’ on us? What’s their trick?” Kar’gandin asked with a scowl. “More magic?”

“Nah. The post office. Oldest trick in the book for the Statsi, but it might be a brand new trick here,” Lucas said. 

“The post-what?” Adin asked, as confused as everyone else.

“The messengers. The only things she seemed to know about were the things that woman seemed to know about, which were the things that had been sent via the official messaging services,” Lucas answered with a shrug. “She knew that we got the drugs off the docks because Lord Corrin sent me an official page boy, and she knew about the meet the first time because they'd used a couple of the official services to message the gangs about the auction and establish interest. Since then—”

“But we don’t get Blue from the docks, do we?” Hura’gh asked. “If you aren’t making it here, then what are you doing all day?”

“Of course I make it here,” Lucas sighed. “That’s just a lie. I started at the party I had to go to. If I tell people I’m making it myself, then not only do I paint a target on my back, but I drive the price down.”

“Why would where you get it drive the price down?” Adin asked, finally putting down the wand. “The price is whatever we say it is, isn’t it?”

“Ya idjet!” Kar’gandin said, pounding the table. “If ye make it, then ye can make more of it. That makes it anything but rare. Since no one except for us and the Knights of Brass has any idea where it comes from, though, we can say it’s from far, far away, and that instantly makes it rarer and more desirable. Especially amongst the dolts in the upper crust like ye!”

“Exactly, I couldn’t have said it better,” Lucas agreed before clearing his throat. “Anyway, I’ve just been hiring boys from Meadowin to run my messages lately, even though someone thought it was a waste of money, and she didn’t know shit about any of that. So I figure that the Whisperers either run some of the official messaging outfits, or they just have people that work there. Either way, we have to assume any letter we send or receive that way from now on is getting read, whether it's sealed or not.”

“Then I suppose we’d best not send any more correspondence that way, then,” Adin said smugly. 

Lucas just looked at him and rolled his eyes. “We know how they get the secrets they use to blackmail the people in power, and you think the best use of that information is to just… what? Not use it?”

“But if we sent a letter with something important in it then they would… ohhhhhh, I see,” Adin said, working through the problem himself. “Very devious. We can use them to believe things that aren’t true. Very devious Lucas, very devious. How do you propose we use that information then?” 

“Well, I was thinking we try luring them into a trap, and see what happens,” Lucas said with a smile. “All of this information has a shelf life. In a day or two, they will notice that their agent hasn’t come back. If she’s as important as you say, they’ll either have a private army, or the city watch come back here and turn over every stone looking for her.”

“But why would they look here?” Hura’gh asked. “You told them you were getting your drugs from the docks.”

“Yeah, and as long as they were trying to get their hands on my shit to expand their little blackmail operation, they chose to hold on to the little secret that Mister Blue lays his head here most nights, but when things start to spin out of control for them, who knows what cards they will play,” Lucas answered, connecting all the little imaginary dots in his brain. “And if one of their agents is the daughter of a Duke, then we can say that they’re well-connected at the highest levels.”

“But the Whisperers are barely as powerful as the blind according to most,” Hura’gh said, trying to follow, “Even the Butchers are stronger than them, and these days they ain't shit compared to the Knights or a few other groups. Hells, we ain’t even so far out of the running as we were a couple of weeks ago.”

Lucas didn’t bother to explain that there was a difference between real power and street power to the half-orc because he didn’t think that the brute would get it. It didn’t matter. This conversation was for him, not for any of them. The more he talked, the more the pieces fell into place, and right now, all he could think about was that fucking dagger. 

There was zero doubt in his mind that they’d have a way to track down Miss Torvin, too, when the time came. That meant that they had to get her the hell out of there, but unfortunately, other things came first. 

Everything was a flurry of motion after that. Even though the new lab location wasn’t done, they had to disassemble the current lab and get it down stairs, they had to hide the entrance to the downstairs, erase all evidence of the conflict, and decide what to do with the prisoner. 

Before any of that, though, he had to make a potion and send some messages. The potion was less of a potion and more of a bomb, and since he was in a hurry, he chose something as simple as possible so they could start breaking down the lab. In the end, he chose to create a fulminating potion. 

It wasn’t complicated. Sulfur and alcohol he already had laying around already, and coal dust and sugar he could get from the house. His old master used to add ground fireblossom root it, but Lucas had never understood why. It worked just as well without it, but the old man didn’t understand exothermic reactions. 

In this case, he added a touch of blue esper sap to it to give the whole thing the right blue color. Once properly mixed, it became an extremely fast-acting oxidizer. It would have been better to have someone wait by the barrels and throw it, but he didn’t want any loose ends. 

So, he’d have someone sneak in tomorrow after the barrels had been delivered and tuck the flask between them. That way, it would either get crushed when they tried to steal the barrels or opened when they noticed it. Either way, the results would be explosive. 

It was probably overkill, he decided, as he sealed it with a cork stopper and a wax seal before he started shaking it to make it bubble and froth. If those assholes open a barrel full of lamp oil with a torch in hand, the whole place is going to go up anyway, he thought. Still, it was better to be safe than sorry. 

After that, all he had to do was write the letters. The first one was simple enough that he had Adin handle it. They were going to need half a dozen barrels of lamp oil for what came next. The next two, he wrote himself while everyone was breaking things down. Both were to Sir Tristin, but he planned to send them via two different messengers a few hours apart. 

The first one that he planned to send via the compromised route simply read, “Due to attention I’ve attracted from the Whisperers, I will not be able to make a delivery this week. Be advised that tomorrow night, an associate of mine from the docks will make a delivery of several barrels to the warehouse at the following address.”

He chose a place that he’d done some business before that was known for its connections to the Blind, on the north side off the market district. Two birds with one stone was good, but three birds would be even better, and with any luck he could earn the Whisperers another enemy while all this sorted itself. 

After that, he wrote a second letter, letting Sir Tristin know that the first one was bait for a trap because their communications were compromised, and then he should send no one to that warehouse under any circumstances. Once that was done, he gave them to three separate boys to run into town. 

Lucas could have saved some money by just paying one boy to do all three, but he couldn’t shake the fear that if he did it that way, the kid would end up mixing the messages up, instantly tipping their hand to the Whisperers. 

Once that was one, he collected the magic items, and decided to pay the girl a visit. “Pack a bag, Adin,” Lucas said on the way out. “You and me are going camping for a could days.”

Ch. 55 - Laying Low

The last thing that Lucas had to do before he could bounce was decide what to do with their prisoner. That meant he had to meet with her again, so before he did that, he got cleaned up.

Looking disheveled or that he was in a hurry would just make her feel like there might be some way out of this for her, and that was the last thing he wanted. So, no matter how hectic the preparations were elsewhere on the compound, he changed shirts and made himself presentable. 

Only then did he go to the main house, where he found Danaria looking through some things at the kitchen table. “Where’s our guest?” Lucas asked. 

“She’s downstairs, under guard,” Danaria answered, “There were no problems. I was just waiting for you to get here to tell me what any of these things are.”

Lucas looked around the table. He saw an emptied coin purse that contained only gold and silver. A little black book that was full of notes, though apparently in some kind of cipher, a very expensive-looking dagger with what seemed to be a family crest on it, a scroll, and a few other pieces of jewelry.

“I don’t know,” Lucas answered truthfully. “Any one of them could have a secondary purpose or a hidden danger with the right command word. I’ll take them with Adin and bury them in the orchid before we find a place to lie low for a while. They can stay there until we have a better idea of what’s going on.”

“The orchard?” she asked, looking up, “Why? What’s going on?”

“What’s going on is that this woman has friends. Powerful friends. They almost certainly know that she went out to talk with me today, and when she doesn’t come back…” Lucas sighed. “Well, when she doesn’t come back they’re going to look everywhere they think that she or I might be. Which means here, first and foremost.”

“Oh my goodness, you’re right!” Danaria said, rising to her feet. “We have to—”

“Not you,” Lucas interrupted. “You’re staying right here. It’s me and your brother they’re looking for along with—”

“But what if they think I’m… I don’t know, in league with you, or involved in all this, or whatever,” she asked, suddenly panicking. “Because I kind of am!”

“Listen!” Lucas said, grabbing her by the shoulders and moving close enough to her so that she couldn’t focus on anything but the words he was going to say next. “You have to stay here with Gerwin and everyone else and just act natural, okay? I’m going to leave Hura’gh and Kar’gandin here too, so—”

“But won’t they be looking for them, too?” she asked, starting to panic. “What if they know I’m lying to them and—”

“Danaria, calm down. It’s going to be fine,” Lucas practically shouted, forcing her to take a nice deep breath. “Guards have come looking for your brother twice, and they’ve left twice without issue. This will be the same as that. As for the dwarf and the half-orc, well, they might still be wanted, but no one is really looking for them specifically. They’ll stay out of sight and keep an eye on you guys, and if something goes wrong, they’ll let me know.”

“Lucas…” she whimpered, suddenly surging forward to hug him. “I’m scared.”

“I get it,” he nodded, patting her on the back. “This wasn’t how I planned to spend my day either. Shit was finally on rails, and now this.”

He spent a few more minutes trying to comfort her, and when Gerwin came in and saw the two of them hugging, he frowned and made no attempt to hide his displeasure. He calmed down once Lucas explained the plan, and other than his silent judgment about the things that Lucas was doing to interrupt this household, he did nothing. 

By the time he got down to see his prisoner. He found Miss Torvin bound hand and foot in the northeast corner of the basement, under the stairs. She’d been stripped to her underwear, which was still enough to cover about eighty percent of her body, but she looked to be as uncomfortable as Danaria had been the time he’d walked in on her in bed. 

To the guards’ credit, they weren’t staring at her like creeps, at least, and Lucas sent them upstairs to help clean up everything as he pulled up a chair and sat down in front of his prisoner. “Well,” he asked. “Was it worth it?”

“I won’t tell you anything,” she spat. “How dare you treat a lady of the court this way. When my father hears of this—”

“He’ll do very bad things,” Lucas nodded as he agreed. “I don’t doubt it. But he has to find me first, and I can promise you one thing. If I don’t get some answers out of you, then no one is ever going to see you again.”

“You wouldn’t have the balls to hurt me,” she smirked. 

“Hurt you? No. I’m not into that,” Lucas answered with a shake of his head. “But you must remember that I do have certain… alchemical connections. I could poison you whenever I want, and I assure you it will be a very peaceful death. You won’t feel a thing.”

That threat was enough to cow her, but only for a moment. “Even if I die, others will have my revenge. You’re just the criminal scum of a lesser house. Who would stand up for you?”

“Well, you said it yourself earlier,” he smiled. “Anyone I want, after they get hooked on blue. That’s what you wanted it for, right? So you could make addicts of the key people in Lordanin and control anyone that opposed you?”

“You know nothing about me or my plans,” she said with a smirk, but Lucas could tell he’d hit close to the mark, and her lies were hollow. 

“Well, be that as it may, you’re coming with me for a couple of days. We’re going to lie low and do a little digging into what you want while we decide to do next,” he said. 

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” she shot back. “When I don’t come back tonight, they’ll look for me, and by this time tomorrow, I’ll be home eating veal cutlets, and you’ll be in chains in the dungeon waiting your turn with the torturer.”

Lucas smiled coldly. He had to admire her confidence if nothing else. Arissa was a lovely woman with dark complexion, and dark curly hair. He was sure that she was used to being the center of attention, but maybe not quite like this. 

“Sounds nice,” Lucas nodded. “I could go for some veal myself, but it’s going to be simpler, fair, at least for a while until your friends give up the chase. I’m sorry to disappoint you.”

“You think you can—” she started to say, but Lucas kept on talking right over her. 

“As to waiting here, I’ll give you two choices,” he continued. You can either come along willingly, and I’ll let you put a dress back on, or you can keep fighting, and I’ll drag you upstairs in your underwear and put you in a mule cart. You know, give the boys a real eyeful.”

She shivered at that, and covered up her bust, which near as he could tell was already covered by at least two or three different layers of fabric. She said nothing, and was content to glare daggers at him until he stood up. Then she said suddenly. “Fine, send your maid servants and whoever that girl was back down with my clothes and I’ll come along peacefully. I will not be exposed to the eye of the commoners anymore than I already have been today.”

Lucas called Danaria and had her come back down, but he switched outfits on the woman. Miss Parin brought down something a little more feminine than the odd suit that the woman had been wearing. 

“These are not my clothes!” she yelled. “Where are my blouse and trousers?”

“Probably the burn pit,” Lucas lied. “You have more than enough magic on you. We’re not giving you back anything you might be able to turn into a weapon against me as soon as I turn my back on you.”

Lady Tovin yelled in anger for several minutes after that, flinging all the verbal abuse she could think of at him. In the end she was wearing one of Danaria’s old dresses, and after the ropes around her ankles were loosened to allow for walking, he took her upstairs. 

By that point, the dining room was almost clean, dinner was almost done, and Adin was packed and ready to go, though he didn’t seem to be much happier about it than Arissa was.

Since their prisoner had already tipped her hand that no one was going to be looking for her for at least a few more hours, they had one last warm meal before the three of them headed off. It was a somber affair. Everyone’s face was full of unasked questions, but for various reasons, they weren’t spoken aloud. Instead, after they finished eating, Danaria said, “Please return safely when all this is done.”

“We will dear sister,” Adin said with a smile, stealing the words right out of Lucas’s mouth, to his annoyance. 

The three of them set out on foot toward the orchard. From there, they would cut across the main road, and then go into the Greenwood. Before they left, though, Lucas spoke with Hura’gh and Kar’gandin, letting them know the plan, and approximately where he’d be so that they could send him updates. 

“What about th’ Knight’s of Brass,” Kar’gandin asked. “They’re gonna want answers, especially when the deliveries stop, and the you-know-what goes off.”

“Send them a clean runner, and let them know that we’ve already opened a new lab elsewhere in the city, and that as soon as I’m not dealing with the Whisperer’s I’ll start getting them their product again,” Lucas said. “Whatever you do though, don’t mention anything about this house. Make him think its all in Lordanin somewhere. They’ll smell weakness from all this and we want them looking in the wrong direction along with everyone else.”

After that, they started moving. Lucas didn’t plan to get very deep into it tonight, and now that the goblins were an endangered species, he didn’t expect much in the way of trouble. The real trouble was how long it was going to take for the smoke to clear on this mess and for him to decide what he should do with their prisoner.

While Lucas knew what the right answer was here, he also knew that he wasn’t that kind of scumbag. The best move was probably to chop her into little pieces and plant the body in the Knight's territory. That's exactly what he would have done if she'd died in the struggle, but killing her in cold blood would never sit right with him.