This is a game of Finders Keepers set in the city of Marlinko. The dramatis personae are:
- Atiin Brigantia, a brilliant but lazy lunatic
- Edward "the Wild" Bleestocles, a leper disowned by his wealthy family
- Jacobin "Jackass" Valentin, a soulless bastard
- Tadzio Checker, an estranged son of a powerful mage
- Victory Alder, a young vampire
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| Banana Slug Bounty by Molly Reusser |
The Tomb of the Town Gods, night
The interior of the featureless black cube is just as black and featureless. The rock itself appears seamless - almost like it was poured concrete or cut from a single chunk, rather than constructed by block. A deathly quiet hangs over the empty central hall, dominated by five immense stone doors, sealed and covered in glyphs. The only illumination is offered by the scant flicker of the bro-dude's torch and a fluctuating pink glow at the back end of the hall.
The guy jumps a little when the door behind him slams shut. He didn't see that Victory pushed it close. She nudges him forward.
"What is it?" she whispers.
The glow is coming from an amoeba-like form floating silently in place. It doesn't seem to register the two intruders at all.
But the bro-dude is just standing there, shuddering instead of moving. In fact, he is starting to lean a little too much on Vic and when she tries to take a step forward, he shies away and stumbles, sending them both to the floor.
Their fall echoes across the hall.
The torch rolls out of the guy's grasp, sputtering and throwing deep shadows everywhere.
"You're useless, aren't you?" Vic hisses as she pushes him off of her.
He starts to say something, but the words die on his lips as he sees a dagger in Vic's hand.
She cuts his throat.
Halfway standing up, he staggers and clutches his neck, trying to get the bleeding to stop. Red bubbles come out of his lips instead of a scream of terror, but Vic grabs his hair and drives her blade into the base of his skull. His limbs go limp and a spray of arterial blood paints a red angel-like silhouette in brisk, abstract strokes on the dark floor.
Vic kneels by him and laps up the last beats of his heart.
Satisfied and in a much better mood, she goes through his pockets. Nothing really interesting, save for a letter from his parents agreeing to send him more money for his studies.
However, when Victory turns her attention to the five enormous doors, she realizes that they are actually huge coffins embedded in the walls. The last one, though, is no longer safely sealed shut. In front of this coffin lie small crumbs and shards of black stone; they are consistent with the cracks and disruptions on the otherwise smooth borders of the lid and wall around it. That door has been pried opened, just barely.
Taking the fallen torch, Vic peers into the cracked coffin. She can barely make out more glyphs perfectly carved into the inner walls of this narrow yet still massive chamber - a coffin for a giant. There's nothing inside, so Vic snatches one of the black shards from the floor, at least.
Curious, she then also approaches the flying amoeba. Like a bubble of oil mixed in water, it seems to be immediately pushed away by Vic's proximity. It slides back through the air, then keeps wobbling in its new place. Although now that it's further back, its glow reveals an access point to another room.
Giving the amoeba a wide berth to keep it from flying around, Vic walks through a short corridor to what appears to be a study room or workspace of some sort. There is a pulpit at the centre and unusually thin "shelves" lining the walls, perfect silvery spheres floating above them. This room is also too far from the entrance to still fit within the Tomb of the Town Gods.
Unlike the whole rest of the Tomb, the pulpit (and the shelves) is not made of black stone, but rather some sort of immaculate, perfectly polished metal, of the same silvery hue as the floating spheres. The pulpit has a few very precise indentations of uncertain purpose, long straight double lines that stem from the base of each side and elegantly spread in opposite directions at the top. A faint sunlight frames a rectangular window high up at the ceiling of this room, even though it should be pitch black outside.
Vic comes closer to the shelves and as she holds her hand out closer to the spheres, she can feel faint vibrations in the air, a constant humming sound just below the normal human hearing range. The spheres remind her of something... Something she has seen? Where has she seen them before?
She grabs one sphere. It's cool to the touch and surprisingly normal. Just a ball of metal.
Undeterred, she takes out the bottled blood of a hruz-head from the night before and spills it all over the pulpit. Instantly, the top of the table becomes liquid metal, as if it were a lake's surface just disturbed by the blood spilled. The waves slowly coalesce into silvery liquid tendrils that wrap around the blood, pooling it into the centre and forming a silvery sphere that solidifies and starts floating above the once again immaculate and undisturbed pulpit.
Vic takes the orb, making sure not to touch the metallic surface beneath it.
With no more room and no secrets or treasures to be found, Vic returns to the grand coffins to have a better look at their engravings. Much of the writing is comparable to Old Pahr, but the notation seems more angular, more formal, perhaps. Vic doesn't understand a word, but maybe Atiin could, so she takes the letter from the bro-dude's pocket - blank on the flip side - and uses his blood as an ink and her hairpin as an improvised quill.
There's a lot of writing, but Vic is patient and doesn't need to sleep.
***
The Golden Swine district, morning
It's just past seven o'clock and the Great Race has already started. There are guardrails installed on each side of certain streets and traps at specific corners and junctions where the competitors will have to evade them. Many a horde of hungover party-goers pass by Atiin as he shuffles down these streets. A bunch of kids crosses the street, unwilling to walk by a crumpled figure noisily vomiting on a street corner.
Atiin does a double take when the figure waves at him. Yeah, it really is Ed.
"This morning I feel like death instead of just looking it," Ed says. "Hope you're having a better morning than I-ahh, eugh, bleurgh!"
Atiin takes a step back and leans on the wall. "Could always be better. What happened to you? Wanna get your taste buds refreshed in a bar?"
"I would say if I could remember. I... have that image... like a dream or something... dozens of others with holes eaten into their flesh by the disease... same as me, like a hidden pandemic, or... Oh crap, I think Jackass was supposed to have that duel! And I'm his second!"
He staggers to his feet and with Atiin's help, actually manages not to slump back into the pool of sick.
"I should prolly rush back to - eugh - Kytel's," he adds.
Atiin sighs and grabs Ed's arm to support him. "Okay, let's go."
On their way to Kytel's abode, they have to take detour after detour to avoid all the traps set up for the Great Race riders, some already sprung and bloodied. When a set of barbed wire hurdles makes them go though a particularly dark alley instead, they suddenly hear a wet noise from the shadows, like someone making fart sounds with their mouth. Then a moan of pain and a scrannel male voice calling: "'uuhy! O'er 'ere!"
"What the..." Atiin stops and stares.
It's Littlest Pavol. He looks desperate. Doesn't take a genius to see that it is due to the fact that his tongue is abnormally swollen, involuntarily sticking out of his mouth and preventing him from speaking in any intelligible manner.
"Whoa, ugh... Take it easy man," Atiin rushes to him, leaving Ed propped against a stack of crates.
At least Littlest Pavol is not choking, it seems. However, the problem is not merely that his tongue is swollen; rather it looks like it took a life of its own, as it has turned into a large slug, complete with eye-stalks and what appears to be the tiniest little mouth. It attempts to communicate independently of Littlest Pavol's protestations, by means of this super high-pitched, barely audible honking sound.
"Your tongue is a snail!" Atiin screams. Then a thought strikes him: "Perhaps, ummm, should we use that syringe and extract from it like you did last night?"
"I 'ow 'y 'ongue ish a 'ail. Ee' wantsh 'o 'reak 'ree 'rom 'y 'outh! Ohh ee' 'uurrtsh!" Littlest Pavol says.
"Oh, ehm, let's take you to a doctor," Atiin grabs him and picks him up from the ground.
He goes to grab Ed again, too, but Edward pushes his hand away: "No, I... gotta get to the duel. Good luck, I guess?"
He starts down the alley, an arm extended and fingers tracing along the wall for stability.
Atiin drags Littlest Pavol the other way, to one Doctor Franz he's heard some talk about. This guy is a barber-surgeon not yet thirty years old, purportedly a dropout from the Němec University. He's dressed in a greasy night robe and slippers when he answers the incessant pounding at his door.
"What can I do for y- MY SUN LORD WHAT IS THIS?!? HOW DID THIS HAPPEN??"
Atiin points at Littlest Pavol: "He can explain it better than I."
He lets them in and half an hour goes to waste as Littlest Pavol utterly fails to explain what happened to him while that bloated thing stuck in his mouth peeps and honks. Occasionally, the slug seems to parrot a word or two from Pavol, filtering it through its high-pitched, squeaky nuisance of a voice. Somehow, it is getting clearer and more enunciated with every word it manages to say, though.
"Well," Doctor Franz finally interrupts, "I wouldn't know what to suggest in this case. I mean, I've heard rumours that a couple of security guys in the Temple of Revoc have experienced a similar malady. They too are said to have consumed the hruz paste, so... uhm. I don't know what to say, really."
He stands up and walks to his medicine cabinets, then beckons Atiin to come closer. There he leans close and whispers: "Look, this guy here, he's Kladivo's son, isn't he? I will tell you this, I will not risk my neck performing surgery on him. All I can really do for him is cut this thing out and cauterize it. That will leave him tongueless. Brilliant. What do you think will happen to me next? How long do you think it will take for his dad to come after me?"
"But he can't go to his dad like this broken junkie now, can he?" Atiin mutters. "Could you bleed it? Weaken the snail somehow or perhaps salt and boil it so the snail dies but the tongue remains? Perhaps more hruz? Medicinally, I mean. It could cause the snail to grow enough that it leaves of its own volition. Yeah, I don't know. We are paying customers and he needs his tongue. You figure it out."
The doctor looks momentarily pained as he makes the decision not to get paid, but that's what it takes to not have Littlest Pavol as his customer and his problem.
"No. I can't," he says. "I can't afford rubbing Hurloj Kladivo the wrong way. Just... Please leave and don't ever mention this visit to anyone. You were never here."
He stomps to the door and holds them open.
"Wah?" Littlest Pavol pipes up, followed by a peep from the slug. "Wah a'out 'y 'ongue?"
"Give me a cloak!" Atiin orders the doctor.
"Wha- a cloak? Why?"
"He can't just walk around looking like this, people will recognize him and ask questions. He needs a disguise!"
Doctor Franz hesitates for a moment before handing Atiin a dark plague doctor's cloak. Atiin throws it around Littlest Pavol's shoulders and then helps him stand up, to get him out of there and find some actual help.
***
The Tomb Plaza, very early morning
Standing before the closed door out of the Tomb, Victory takes a deep, steadying breath. She makes sure to stow away all her possessions and especially her dagger. She dishevels her clothes a bit and puts on a properly shell-shocked expression. Then she steps outside.
It's still dark, maybe another hour before sunrise, and a dozen drunkards dance in a circle around the Tomb. Thankfully, they are really drunk and turn a corner without paying attention to anything and anyone. Except for the last in the line, that is, a young woman wearing a makeshift crown made of belts. She has a bottle of slivovitz in hand and a mixed expression stamped on her face - of exhaustion and alcohol-soaked joy, but now that she sees Vic emerge from the Tomb, also awe.
She just stares, but a nearby peddler who was just about to call it a night notices, too. After a second of unbelieving silence, he exclaims: "Oh my Celestial Mother! SHE IS OUT! SHE CAME OUT!"
His voice carries throughout the mostly empty plaza.
Vic fights to keep a spaced out expression on her face and tries to just walk away. If she can get to some smaller side street, she can get lost without attracting a crowd of gawkers.
But the peddler gets in her way: "Are- are you alright, miss? You lookin' pale. I- I think you should have a sit. No! Maybe see a physician first of all." He grabs her arm, now insistent. "Here, come with me! I'll take you to see a priest, I mean, a physician!"
"No!" Vic says. She thinks back to the time with her Master. To the way he talked, because when he talked, people listened and believed. She tries for that, for his tone and way of speaking, when she continues: "The priests, the Sun, they have lied to us. They have come to us uninvited, they told us that our gods are dead."
She leans close to him, stage-whispering right to his face: "The old gods are not dead! They are watching us, they are watching over us. They shall return, and when they do, they shall judge us all. The faithful shall be rewarded, while the traitors shall burn!" She glances back at the Tomb, then turns back to him, wide-eyed. "Tell everybody! Tell them about the deception of the Sun! Tell them about the glorious return of the true gods!"
Finally, she pushes him back: "Go! Go now and tell everybody! They shall return! I have to go and tell my family, now!"
He scats, leaves his cart behind and runs.
Vic hides a little smile as she leaves the town square unharassed and takes the back streets to the apartment.
As she gets home, though, she is welcomed by a shaken Tadz. He is lurking in a dark corner of what passes for their living room and brandishes a kitchen knife.
"Godling's crap! You scared me shitless!" he runs to her and slams the door shut. "Have you been followed here? Did you see anyone suspicious out there?"
"I hope not and I did not. What's happening?"
"Word in the streets is that the Free League has found a buncha bodies in a slum apartment just behind the Undercouncil Hall. Sounds familiar?"
"Who told you that? As far as I know, nobody saw anything, nobody remembers who was there, they can link nobody. And by tomorrow afternoon, we should be on our merry way to the Frog Demon Temple, letting things cool down a bit."
"Oh, I'm telling you, shit's getting serious. I have heard the news from the landlord - fucking Mr. Gorz, of all people." Tadz starts pacing, nearly jogging in circles around the room. "He stopped me by the stairs to mention that some League people were asking questions around the neighbourhood. Now, when I asked Gorz if they approached him, he gave me some vague shit, went all like 'things sometimes can get a bit rowdy in this building, can't they?' Fucking prick," he gestures with the knife. "He knows something, might have seen or heard something, is what I'm thinking."
"As I said, we will be gone for the next few days, stuff will blow over."
Vic grabs his hands and eases the knife out of them, pressing a cigarette in them instead. "Here, have a smoke."
Hands shaking, he lights it on a candle. Vic also has one and then another, sitting there with Tadzio as he slowly calms down.
They talk and the Sun rises and it strikes Vic that Tadz doesn't fear getting caught as such. He fears what his father will say when he finds out. At a distance, a series of flintlock shots announces the start of the Great Race. People cheer, hoofs hit the ground in a syncopated cadence. The city settles to its normal activities, though many people are gathering around pre-established points peppered along the racing lane to watch the competitors run by.
Somehow, it is almost calm, the storm still on the horizon.
***
Kytel's Abode, late morning
The breakfast is delicious, but the mood has soured a bit when Kytel brought up yet another snag brought about by the duelling rules. His fingers are drumming at the cover of The Art of Properly Duelling and he clears his throat for the third time this minute, embarrassed and exasperated with himself.
As it turns out, according to the Proper Rules of Duelling, accepting a duel where part of the agreement is a transferral of money is straight out of the question, as it would stop being a gentlemanly duel and become simple work instead, or even worse, a bet. And working, let alone gambling, is neither gentlemanly nor Proper.
"I really should have known," Kytel says, "before opening the door to this preposterous monstrosity, duelling for money! I'm so sorry I strung you along."
He clears his throat again and then bolt upright, his chair nearly falling over.
"If you'll excuse me," he says, "I- I need to find a solution."
And he stalk off, leaving Jack and Auntie Mimi sitting in awkward silence.
She lets a few seconds pass and when Kytel is safely out of earshot, she says: "Do not worry about it. I know you need the money and I will cover the gold regardless of how the duel turns out. When he comes back, tell him that you wish to do it for your honour or something silly of the sort. What matters is that he will have his chance to do what he loves for once, you know? Kytel is so precious to me, and he has given up so much to stay behind and take care of me. He deserves to have things go his way for a change."
Jackass starts smiling and then he nods. When Kytel returns, Jack stands up: "You! I have never really intended to duel you for money! That was all just a test of your gentlemanly fortitude, and you passed! However, I do feel mightily insulted that you would string me along and then let me hang! Therefore, master Kytel, I challenge thee to a duel for this affront! What says thee?!"
Kytel's expression turns to worry, then puzzlement, then realization, which lifts up the gloom and gives room to a smirk. The smirk grows to be a proper, tender smile, and the unexpected bursting out of laughter. Soon enough, all three of them are laughing together. Before they can say much more, Edward barges in, overflowing with apologies for his tardiness.
They finish the breakfast and consult Kytel's book for the proper arrangements for a duel. From now on, the two rivals' seconds, Edward and Mimi, are in charge of all their affairs. The contenders must cut off all communication between them, so they sit in the smoking room in silence, sharing a bottle of good brandy.
Auntie Mimi is having a great time having to pretend to be all serious and diplomatic. Being the proxy for the challenged party, she has the right to pick the ground. She proposes that the duel should take place outside the city's southern gate, on the bridge near the menstrual huts.
Edward gets to choose the time. "High noon has always struck me as a good time for duels."
"I will consult with master Kytel and will be back with an answer as soon as possible," Auntie Mimi bows and excuses herself. As she turns around, she can't help but giggle at her own silliness.
But of course today's noon is fine. Kytel cannot wait any longer. The theatrics must be abided by, though.
"Thus it shall be. A duel of honour, to the first blood," Auntie Mimi extends a hand.
"Thus it shall be," Edward replies and shakes her hand.
She grabs him and secretly passes him the pouch of promised gold, all hush-hush, wink-wink. Then she bids farewell to Ed and retires to her quarters, humming a Němetzian song.
Jackass finishes his glass of brandy and leaves the house without a word, Ed a single step behind him. Their exit is mightily dramatic.
Kytel is left alone, brimming with happy and excited nervousness.
***
The House of the Nine, morning
A pigeon watches Victory intently as she comes to the fence and whistles. Then a magic mouth sprouts from the wall to her left: "Oh, it's you, early bird. Wait a sec, I'm sending Leland to buzz you in."
A minute later, the familiar gust of wind allows her to hop over to the other side. Down in the basement, Glamdalf is drinking coffee, still in his underwear.
"You're not one to sleep in, eh?" he says.
"I'm not one to sleep, really. And I would never guess that you like animal pattern underpants," Victory winks.
"Hah! Yeah, that's pretty much all that's left from my glam period," he chuckles.
"You mentioned yesterday that you might be interested in something from the Frog Demon Temple and I hope we're leaving today. Plus I have a few things that you might like to have a look at, or I might like you having a look at."
She empties her satchel on the table, revealing the shard of black rock, the two silvery spheres, the copied symbols from the Tomb and also the amphora stolen from the Undercouncil Hall.
"You've been busy, I see," he says casually, then: "Holy shit!"
He scans over the goods, focusing on the copied symbols more than on anything else.
"Where did you get this? Don't tell me that..." he raises an eyebrow, likely already guessing the answer.
"I kinda found myself inside of the Tomb of the City Gods tonight. These symbols were inscribed on the coffins inside. They seem similar to Old Pahr, but what do I know? This rock is a shard from one of the coffins that was cracked open, and the silvery spheres were lying on a shelf near some strange table-thing. Well, one was. The other was created when I spilled some blood over the pulpit. What are they?
Oh, and there was a glowing amoeba thingy. Quite shy, frankly.
And the amphora is from elsewhere. Seems magical, so maybe you would know what's inside?"
Victory is talking quickly and loudly now, and smiling unwittingly. Somehow, she is so excited. Glamdalf looks worried in his animal pattern underpants.
Following a long pause, he crosses his arms and rests his chin on his hand: "Kiddo, I was afraid you were gonna tell me just that. 'Cause, you know, it does not come as a surprise that you were looking for trouble inside the Tomb, given your big ask yesterday."
He pauses again, then waives a piece of paper: "Now, uhm, this is a containment spell. Powerful, powerful stuff. Kinda beyond my pay grade, to be honest. Wheew. Okay. Okay," he takes a deep breath. "Let me see if I got it right. You said this is from the coffins, which makes sense. But did I hear you say that one of the coffins was found unlocked?"
When Vic nods, he holds the fragment of black stone between his index finger and thumb, examining it closely.
"If that is true, I believe I don't need to spell it out for you what it means, right? One of the gods is out in the open." Then it hits him what he just said. "O- o- o- or maybe it isn't. It better not be. Pray that it isn't. Uhm, shit. Okay, okay, okay. Okay. Tell me more about this amoeba thing."
He continues to examine the wealth of evidence Victory brought, nodding as she describes the glowing, floating, retreating shape. He seems to be doing a pretty good job at multitasking, in fact; taking notes, consulting old tomes, collating all sorts of information at once. He calls for Leland on occasion, and when he does the wind responds to his instructions.
"-because of the pantsless barbarian that had broken into the Tomb just two days prior, I think? I guess the cracked coffin doors might be related? Oh, the coffin was cracked, not unlocked," she finishes.
"Yeah, yeah. I've heard about the barbarian. But since those kinds of tall tales of people venturing into the Tomb are getting so old by now, I paid it no mind. I should have known that something was afoot, though, or my pubic hair would not be this bristly." His forehead is all wrinkled and creased now, all his former levity gone. "But I can't be the only one feeling these weird vibes. Isn't it odd that the big shots haven't done anything yet? Like the Checkered Mage, for example. If anyone can do anything about this level of batshit cosmic mess, it's him."
"So, what would you say is the chance that nothing bad will happen if we just ignore the problem and let the Checkered Mage or somebody else handle it? Because this is frankly way, way over my head," Victory asks.
"Letting somebody else handle this level of fuckery is the code I live by, so you know you'll get no judgement from me. On the other hand, these things have a way of escalating quickly." He seems momentarily lost in thoughts. "I think you should keep your ear to the ground, 'cause this might blow up in all of our faces sooner than later. And I appreciate you coming to me with this first hand. I can now - I don't know - plan ahead, I guess. Might have to even get the hell outta this town to avoid being here, just standing in the epicentre of whatever is brewing."
"Yeah, I'll do that. Which reminds me, you needed something from the Frog Demon Temple?"
"Yeah. That. Wow. So much all of a sudden on my plate, I had completely forgotten about that." He puts the notes and books and paraphernalia aside. "It should be simple enough. I would like you to map the place. Take notes, do the boring cartographer's job. I'd appreciate it immensely. Would you know how much to charge for your troubles on that particular front?"
"For intel? Hm, I'm thinking no money, but rather magic item identification for life. Which would also, by the way, mean that you get first dibs on any magic stuff I want to sell. What do you say?"
"Deal," he smile and shakes her hand. "For as long as I'm around, you can bring me the good stuff and I will do my best to assess it. Starting with these, I suppose." He gathers the silver orbs and amphora from the table. "Give me a few hours and I'll tell you what these trinkets can do."
"Great! I'll be back later, then."
And she leaves him to it, thanking Leland for hoisting her over the fence again.
***
Near the City Gates, late morning
On their way to the next 'doctor' that Atiin knows of, he and Littlest Pavol get a glimpse of the Great Race riders as their horses gallop their way down the street. Looks like the Golden Swine district is looking at another sure win this year.
"Eh, Athhhn," Littlest Pavol suddenly stops Atiin and points at the tavern they are just passing by, called The Flaming Goat. "'etsff 'oo 'ore 'rugs, 'oundff 'ood?"
"Huh, whatever man," Atiin says, dumbstruck.
He lets Littlest Pavol push him towards the entrance: "Onfffe een thffere, afffk pfffor Pfffaprlpfawa. Pffay thfat you wanwa buy pffockff."
"Sure, sure," Atiin says and goes in, then catches the first serving boy he sees: "Hey, got any sarsaparilla?"
"Don't know anyone by that name, sir," the barefoot boy answers dismissively and keeps sweeping the floor.
Atiin blinks slowly. "I'm here to buy the stuff. Your stock. Sweet, sweet sugar, eh?"
The boy stops sweeping the floor and stares at Atiin instead. Then he turns to the kitchen and screams: "Farfalla, there's a guy here. Says he wants to buy socks!"
A loud female voice answers from two or three rooms away coming from that direction: "Is he armed?"
The boy studies Atiin carefully. "You got anything?"
"A gun and a knife."
"A gun and a knife," the boys yells down the corridor.
The female voice replies: "Tell 'im to put it all in the box!"
The boy drops the broom on the floor, goes behind the counter and comes back with an empty fruit box. "Here, sir. You heard the lady."
When Atiin complies, the boy lets him into the corridor, which connects the kitchen to a few other rooms. The female voice's source is in the last room - a short-haired, scrawny woman wearing a yellow dress and tons of imitation jewellery.
"So, how many socks would you like to purchase?" she asks without ever looking at Atiin directly.
"I have four friends, how much do you think we will need?"
"Well, that depends. If you're in a time crunch and will, uhm, need to change socks before you go to work or something like that, I have these." She lifts a tarp, discreetly showing him a bunch of flasks labelled 'juice'. "But if you prefer to, as they say, get your feet warm, then I recommend you these." She lifts another tarp, showing a thick glass box full of living slugs. "Some precautions are in order before you put them on, but I believe you, uhm, know how it works. I'm not gonna tell you how you are to wear your socks. Anyway, these are two hundred a piece. The other ones are forty for a bottle. If you have four friends, you already know how many you'll need. Unless sharing the same pair of socks is your thing."
Atiin scratches him neck. "Any first time buyers rate? If you are sure of your product it should be a cinch I come back."
It takes a while of Atiin smiling at her sweetly and her glaring somewhere over his shoulder before she lets out a deep sigh. "Fine. Sure. Why not. First time buyer's rate. Well, how much d'you have?"
"Hundred and fifty. I'm hoping for two snails and maybe one of those fast potions?"
"That'll be enough for one of those at best," she points at the slugs, scowling. "Or you can have three bottles for a hundred, but that's that. A woman's gotta make a profit."
"One snail, one drink?" Atiin basically drips sugar with his smile.
"Oookay. Here," she rolls it into a sheet of old newspaper. "But be aware that this is a one-time deal. Next time, better have the coin on you."
"I promise I'll be back," Atiin says.
He retrieves his belongings on the way out. Cloaked Littlest Pavol is waiting nervously on a corner, halfway hiding in an alley.
"Got it," Atiin shows him. "Maybe we watch the race from a rooftop or something while we slurp this snail?"
Littlest Pavol snatches the bottle from Atiin, nods happily, wipes the drool from his own snail-tongue and takes a deep gulp of the philtre. The snail tongue is kinda singing a squeaky song as he stops drinking.
"Except we need, like, cooking supplies, right?"
"'on't yoh 'aaff pffotff a' your pfflacffe? We cffould, wike, gwo chffill thffere."
"I have a bunch of room-mates and they are pretty judgemental."
"Bffummwer. Wellw, 'ow abffoutff we gwo chffeckff thffuh swum outffide tffown?"
"Up to you, man."
Littlest Pavol heads outside of the south gate, where most homeless people and the really really shitty slums are. On the way there his mood appears to improve somewhat. He's quite chatty, but unfortunately very little of what he's saying comes across, given his current condition. Something about not many known faces there where they're going, maybe?
He knows his way about this place of tents and trash. He gives a hobo a few silver pieces, and the hobo immediately vacates his tent so that Atiin and Littlest Pavol can use it for privacy. Cooking implements are included, if quite dented and dirty.
As Littlest Pavol starts to prepare the snail, Atiin sips from the flask and watches. He's not really sure what he's doing with this guy he should be killing for Eliška yet who's becoming more like a homie, but it feels all right for now.
When Littlest Pavol offers him the warm hruz, he declines: "Holding off on it for a while. I had a real bad trip last time. I'll stay to something weaker for today," he says and cradles the bottle.
His arms and legs slowly loose their discreteness, even if that makes no sense. Atiin knows he's tripping, because he can see that his body hasn't changed, yet it feels like it has mashed itself together into one single squishy, cosy blob. Incidentally, Littlest Pavol has finished all of the hruz by himself and is sticking out his gross snail-tongue and pointing it in Atiin's general direction.
"Fuck off," Atiin cackles and smacks it away.
Both Littlest Pavol and the snail-tongue cry in pain. The latter one sounds like a tiny weeping fart that just keeps going.
"Sorry man. Thought the drugs would have, like, helped. They made it worse or something?"
The tongue recoils for an instant and then tries to lick Atiin once more.
"Whoa, back off, man! What is your snail doing?"
Littlest Pavol mumbles something incomprehensible, but his gestures make clear it was: "I have nothing to do with it!"
Atiin crawls back as the tongue flails around and fart-peeps. He pulls out his green, bejewelled knife stolen from the Undercouncil Hall.
"Aww-right, calm down. This knife is magic! I'm thinking we give the tongue a poke and get rid of your problem without hurting you too badly, okay?"
"Oh 'uck! Wot 'ee 'it fftayff wimp fffowevuh? Wo' a'out mah caweer?"
"That's why we are doing this, but no guarantee it'll work. Also we don't want this snail getting to your brain."
Littlest Pavol blinks slowly, his eyes hazed over slightly, and Atiin starts smiling way too wide, both due to the drugs and his weird jaw.
"O'ay," Littlest Pavol says eventually, hesitant. "'ee 'yentwe, pffweasze."
He leans forward, closes his eyes. The snail thrashes about more and more, peeping and squeaking, until the tiny fart-voice becomes utterly clear all of a sudden. In its annoyingly high pitch it intones:
"Light the first light of evening, as in a room
In which we rest and, for small reason, think
The world imagined is the ultimate good.
This is, therefore, the intensest rendezvous.
It is in that thought that we collect ourselves,
Out of all the indifferences, into one thing:
Within a single thing, a single shawl
Wrapped tightly round us, since we are poor, a warmth,
A light, a power, the miraculous influence.
Here, now, we forget each other and ourselves.
We feel the obscurity of an order, a whole,
A knowledge, that which arranged the rendezvous.
Within its vital boundary, in the mind.
We say God and the imagination are one...
How high that highest candle lights the dark."
"Oh Sun Lord," Atiin sputters out and stabs.
A lilac-coloured ooze gushes out of the wound in Littlest Pavol's mouth. He gurgles on it and falls backwards, eyes bulging and wild. Atiin crouches there, freaked out and harrowed-looking, and Littlest Pavol fumbles for the cooking pot and swings it at him, catching him painfully in the shoulder. The snail tongue is visibly hanging from Littlest Pavol's mouth, completely limp.
They both try to get away and dismantle the tent in the process. It all collapses on them, entangling them in filthy tarp. Littlest Pavol is screeching in pain and fear and confusion. Atiin cannot see and cannot move and keeps stabbing at the tarp, panicked.
After what must have been only a few seconds, though it felt so, so much longer, Atiin manages to cut a hole through the tarp and extricate himself. His knife glows bright green and the figure still under the tarp is no longer moving.
Hobos all around are looking and gasping, some of them yelling for help. They are not really inclined to come any closer to the man with a glowing knife, but a few curious ones form a circle around Atiin and the crumpled tent.
Finally, one of them steels herself and, keeping a wary eye on the shocked and stock-still Atiin, pulls away the tarp. Everyone recoils in horror at the sight of a completely faceless corpse. The body that once was Littlest Pavol is still wearing his clothes, streaked with a combination of red and lilac blood, but his face has been replaced with smooth, featureless flesh with the faintest tinge of green.
At the nearby gate, the guards seem to have finally taken notice of the ruckus. They're coming to investigate.
Atiin runs.
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