TIME July 1st, 6:30pm LOCATION The Gauntlet Inn, then the Section House, Chuza
BACKGROUND:
A Bumblebee buy in a back alley went sideways the moment Feydahr’s bodyguard clocked Raven for a second Agent he hadn’t agreed to deal with. Weapons were about to come out on both sides.
WHAT HAPPENED
The alley was barely fifteen feet wide, choked with rubbish and debris underfoot, and Feydahr’s crew had already picked their ground before the deal ever soured – the bodyguard covering from the kitchen steps, the other two flanking the main alleyway and the exit beyond, all three counting on the dark and the mess underfoot to slow anyone coming through.
It was over almost as fast as it started despite it.
The bodyguard got the first strike in from the cover of the steps, hurting both Krusha and Raven, but went down himself before Feydahr had seen enough and called surrender. Krusha patched up the wounded guard while Raven leaned on Feydahr for what he actually knew: Eskobar distributes the Bumblebee, and can be found working Fisher Row.
Krusha pushed further, floating the idea of a bigger deal – twenty bulbs – and Feydahr, agreeable now, laid out how the trade worked. Eskobar moves, rarely staying still; his runners handle the small deals, and he shows for the larger ones himself. A mage or sorcerer, by Feydahr’s account, has a hand in the supply somewhere upstream.
Crowe already had Eskobar’s name from Jimmy Gibbs – a Chuza cutter distributor working for Khozchek, protected by upward of a dozen Arms. On the street he’s known as the Collector, or Friendly, depending who you ask, and he’s been tied to more than one grisly killing without a witness ever managing to make it stick. Feydahr agreed to leave word of the next deal at the Port Inn.
Kowalski’s overnight watch turned up little beyond a large NesterRook half-orc shift change at the orphanage grate. Shift done, the Agents invited Sanchez along to unwind with some fishing in the bay –
“heard there were sharks out there. Sure they weren’t dolphins? Time for Kowalski to get out his big rod, if you know what I’m saying”
before reporting in to Brin: no lead yet on the missing heads, a possible Bumblebee lead worth chasing, and a growing suspicion that Griffiths himself might be tied to the missing children, given the eye found on one of the bodies and his own visibly evasive behaviour.
The name took Brin a moment to place, and then it clearly bothered him. Physicker Griffiths, he recalled – or thought he did – had once served Lord Morden himself, a quarter of a century back, until Morden’s young daughter died of a congenital illness under his care. No charges were ever brought, but Griffiths was quietly dismissed from the Lord’s service all the same, his methods judged unorthodox even by the standards of a desperate father. Records pulled since turned up something else worth noting: a string of sizeable donations into Griffiths’ accounts from Vessentaag-affiliated guilds, stretching back the better part of a decade.
“It’s not by the book, but if he’s involved with the missing children, I’d sanction going in for a look. Getting a warrant on a man of his standing would only tip him off. Make it quick and decisive. If we’re wrong, we’ll deal with the fallout. And if he is involved – I want him alive. I hope you are right.”
Captain Brin
With that, he sanctioned a closer look at Get Stuffed – on the condition Griffiths stayed alive, and that they pulled back the moment anything suggested he wasn’t actually involved.
Raven picked up a silvered shortsword and a stock of alchemist’s fire; Crowe went for a silvered dagger. Walkie-talkies collected from Rhabbatt, they met Reese at the Copper Pan – impressed to be working alongside three Agents, and glad to take the overtime watching Get Stuffed, with a KemerLexi beacon ready if things turned violent.
The nearest large sewer grate gave way to a slick twenty-five-foot ladder down into heat, stink, and a ten-foot circular tunnel.
Crowe went first, sunrod lit, picking a path along a slimy three-foot ledge beside the central filth-choked channel while a tangle of pipework dripped and echoed overhead.
EXTRAS.
OPEN THREADS
- Eskobar – Bumblebee distributor for the Cutters, works Fisher Row, protected by a dozen Arms.
- Brin suspects Dr Griffiths may be connected to the missing children – sanctioned, cautiously, to investigate further.
- Griffiths was dismissed as physicker to Lord Morden 25 years ago, after the Lord’s daughter died in his care – and has been receiving Vessentaag money ever since.