Dungeon 42

Needful Things

Like most Dagger plans, it was simple. Break in, find the seller, and have a little chat. They rented a room in the Inn. The only other one on the floor the seller was on. He didn't have guards, the inn seeming to be considered secure with a safe for guests in the basement. They weren't after the coin though so it hardly mattered.

The lock on the seller's door gave way with a soft click under Pips picks. No magic wards, no runes, just a good lock on a good door in a good inn. Nothing that would have stopped them even before they met 42 and was hardly an obstacle in the wake of their training.

Cord was through first, big shoulders filling the frame, habit rather than need in this case. Jarod followed, calm as ever, and Pip right behind him with that little knife in his hand, spinning it by the hilt like he was already bored. Argent had wandered off. Quint trailed in last, closing the door behind them without a sound.

"I didn't order dinner but… leave it on the table, I might find an appetite yet," the man muttered, facing the room's hearth. He was pale, shoulders tense, well enough dressed to be some kind of noble but not rich enough to mix with the buyers. A glass of something amber was in his hand and there was a faint wet rattle in the air, his breath.

Pip started to step forward but Jarod waved him off. He was clearly going to start but Quint shook his head. Everyone raised an eyebrow at that. It wouldn't be the first time they interrogated someone but he'd never participated directly before, just watched plenty.

Still, Jarod gave way, gesturing for him to proceed. He looked curious rather than confident, but Quint didn't mind. The man coughed, a deep wet sound that dragged on enough they all wondered if they were about to watch him die of his own volition. He held onto the mantle to keep from falling and Quint stepped forward to steady him.

"That can't be good, a winter cough go deep?" Quint asked, genuinely curious.

"No, it's been with me since I was a boy," the man explained as he was helped into a chair. Quint offered him a handkerchief and got a grateful look. A moment later though the man looked at him again, clearly taking in his clothes, too fine by half for an inn worker.

"If you're here about money, I don't have any. Not with me or in the safe," the man said flatly. He was gaunt, pale, but not deathly in the way of the newly sick so much as the long suffering.

"We're not here about coin, but rather the potion maker," Quint said easily.

"I see… you aren't the first to want to approach him directly," the man said with a nod. He looked around the room, noticing the other daggers standing at ease. His eyes flicked across each of them in turn, but not long enough to really see anything. The kind of look a man gave a pit trap as he fell in.

"I can't promise anything, but if you give me the name of your condition or a list of its symptoms, I will pass it on and hopefully get an estimate. Generally though, he only sells a potion every few months and rarely takes requests," he explained.

"That why you still got that cough despite working for him?" Jarod asked.

"Partly, I'm working on his behalf to afford one," the man replied. "My family is noble, old name and a modest territory, but not rich."

"What name is that?" Pip asked, cleaning his nails with his knife. A habit rather than an intimidation tactic, though the difference hardly mattered to anyone who didn't know him.

"I'm Baron Revin Calthorne, who might I be speaking with?" Revin asked.

"I'm Quint," Quint replied as he started forming a shape in his mind. A sigil for a simple illusion. Orbs of light danced in the air like fireflies. "A mage rather than a man of noble lineage."

"Sir," Revin said, openly shocked.

"And I'm here about what you sold today, because it wasn't a healing potion," Quint added.

Revin frowned but didn't speak immediately, clearly struggling with something.

"While you know better than I in such matters, I have seen the effect of one from the same batch. It healed a child of an old injury," Revin insisted.

"A limp?" Pip asked with a scoff. Ravin just nodded and Pip obligingly did his best performance of one, dragging his foot and walking stiffly for a few paces before straightening as nothing had happened. It was an old scam of false healers and the like, up there with faking a palsy by shaking.

"The one sold was certified by the auction house. Their wizard examined it himself at length," Revin said, though his confidence was shaken.

"They certified it was magic, and it was, but not the effect. I checked the catalog, it said "seller claims" then the description of what it was meant to do," Quint countered. He ignored Jarod and Pip looking at him in surprise. They likely hadn't touched the catalog, but he'd been bored.

"I… I will have to speak with the auction. Perhaps their wizard can examine it further," Ravin said, turning paler than he already was.

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Jarod looked to him for his opinion and Quint shook his head. Ravin wasn't a liar, he'd honestly believed he was selling a healing potion. And why wouldn't he? The wizard at the auction couldn't tell the difference, a man supposedly well versed in magic.

"You won't be doing that, they made their money and won't care about anything but their reputation," Jarod offered. Right to the point, and likely correct, as usual.

"I understand, but this isn't a small matter. One does not buy such a thing for no reason like the other baubles and wonders at the auction. It may well be a matter of life and death," Ravin said, rising to his feet. He stood tall for a moment, a hint of nobility in his bearing that even his wheezing couldn't diminish.

"Exactly. Now, you'll tell us what we want to know," Pip said firmly, not a question.

"Forgive me… I take the accusation seriously, but I cannot simply-" Ravin cut off, coughing again. Quint thought about it for a moment, and it made sense. He'd proved he was a wizard, but nothing else. Ravin didn't actually have proof they were telling the truth.

"We changed it out for a real potion before the auction," Quint admitted. That got him a look from everyone, the daggers more shocked than Ravin. They hadn't agreed to tell him anything like that and it was normally something that would be up to Jarod to decide on in the moment.

"We'll offer the same to you, a cure for your condition in exchange for whatever you know about the one you're working for," Quint added. Jarod looked at him hard for a moment then sighed and nodded. Approving of the play if not how it was set in motion.

"I don't need one-" Ravin started only to be interrupted by a violent coughing fight.

"Sure you don't," Pip deadpanned.

"My son needs it… he coughs like my brother did, before it took him… He was nine, my son is eight," Ravin managed with effort.

"You first then, as proof, and for instruction. A real potion isn't a gentle thing," Quint countered. He'd thrown up what he was pretty sure was kidney at one point after taking a potion to heal a stab wound. Blood clots had been common though and he hadn't checked afterwards. He wasn't sure what something to heal the lungs would do, but he doubted that it was going to be pleasant.

"Very well, what do you-" Ravin started coughing violently. Pip grunted in displeasure and went to the bed, dragging off the quilt and throwing it on the floor.

"Just give it to him now so he can't get through three sentences without dying on us," Pip explained.

"Fine," Jarod agreed. A potion appeared seemingly from nothing, a delicate crystal bottle in the shape of a pair of lungs with veins or something similar picked out in amber. "Get on your knees, drink it, then just… let it happen."

"Let it happen?" Ravin asked when he caught his breath for a moment.

"Puking, mostly. Might see some blood. Or worse. Don't fight it, that's just the damaged bits coming up," Cord offered, as if talking about the weather..

"This is… rather too elaborate for a poisoning so… very well," Ravin said, getting on his knees with some difficulty. He took the bottle from Jarod and opened it. His nose wrinkled at the smell, like something floral with a kind of coppery blood scent under it. The physical healing potions tended to be alike in that respect.

He steeled himself and drank.

At first nothing happened. Then his face went red as the coughing started. Deep, wracking, wetter than his prior ones had been. Like he'd nearly drowned and was trying to clear the water from his lungs. Ravin gagged, fell forward on his hands, and hacked something up onto the floorboards. At first it just looked like spit and blood — then more.

Clots. Strings of strange pinkish something. Then it began in earnest, a slurry of pale flesh and blood hitting the quilt with a wet slap as his body heaved. His breath came in ragged gasps between coughs, his eyes bulging as another heave brought up more.

"There we go," Cord said casually. "Just let it come."

Ravin clawed at the floor, trying to stop himself from retching, but his body had taken over, his ribs heaved and his mouth kept spilling more. His chest convulsed again, and another flood of ruined flesh plopped onto the heap already forming on the quilt.

Then, finally, he collapsed forward narrowly avoiding landing in the mess, chest heaving. His skin was a violent reddish-blue at first, but already fading to a healthier shade of red, and his breathing had changed. No more wet rattle. Just air. Clean, unimpeded air.

The Daggers watched him sit there, trembling, staring at the mess he'd just coughed up.

Ravin wiped his mouth with a shaking hand, his voice hoarse but steady.

"You… weren't lying."

"Not about this," Jarod's mouth curled into a thin smile.

"Will… will my son survive that?" Ravin asked, pushing himself up and looking dazed. His color was better, red still from exertion but moving back toward a normal kind of skin color.

"He'll survive the effects of the potion," Quint said matter of factly. "By their nature they won't harm the drinker, despite being unpleasant."

"Exactly, or I'd be dead a dozen times over. I've had most every kind while in a lot worse shape," Cord added. Quint fought down a flinch. He could picture, with unwanted clarity, some of the worst of Cord's injuries and what the potions had done to put him back together. The skeletons had been absolute bastards to him.

"I… see," Ravin said finally, though the look on his face was more horror than conviction. His color was still pale, but no longer the sickly, ashen pallor he'd carried before.

"In the interest of good faith, here, take this now," Jarod said, offering a bottle to Ravin. He almost fell over reaching for it, so Quit helped him up and into the chair by the fire. Potion in hand Ravin stashed it in his coat, but not before it twinkled faintly in the fire's light.

The bottle was identical to the first but Quint noticed the color of the liquid was off. It had that faint, pale shimmer that marked a potion meant to repair everything at once, when the damage was too widespread to sort out otherwise.

Ravin wouldn't know the difference, the effect would look similar, but his son was about to receive a rare kind of blessing. Anything wrong with the boy would be healed immediately. If that was Jarod's gift to the child or 42's he wasn't sure and couldn't ask for the moment.

"It's time I explained things," Ravin said, expression grave.

The story was simple. He'd heard rumors of potions being sold, common enough and usually lies, but he was desperate and tracked all of them down. One finally led him to a man who referred to himself simply as Alchemist. A demonstration had followed, and then the offer: if Ravin got his products into the auction house, he'd eventually get a potion in return.

The gang who collected the money hadn't made an appearance until after the first auction, picking up the money from him outside the building and disappearing. He'd been alarmed but Alchemist had assured him it was arranged for his own safety and he'd accepted it because he hadn't had any other choice.

He didn't know where Alchemist was set up, the man had always arranged to meet him in empty buildings. He knew the gang had their territory on the edge of the city in the older warehouse district. He wasn't rich or important enough to ignore knowing things like what streets to avoid walking at night if you didn't want to get stabbed.

When he'd finished, Jarod only nodded, and the Daggers got up to leave. There was nothing else to say — they had what they came for.