[Crawl #0003] Downriver Money [Complete!]

[Conrad Jamboy]

The walls shuddered and the floor lurched beneath Conrad’s feet as the explosion rocked the complex. About halfway down the opulent hallway to Ajax Whittaker’s vault, the companions stopped short, fighting to keep their balance. The halfling wheeled around to face Baldur, who offered only a shrug of his broad shoulders.

“You asked for a distraction,” the Goron rumbled.

Conrad frowned. “A distraction, not a demolition.”

“I’m guessing with Flank you’ve gotta be more specific than that.”

With a frustrated shake of his head, Conrad raised two fingers to his ear and engaged the communications device. A sharp peal and a hiss of static had him yanking the piece of metal and plastic from his ear. “What the hell is going on?” Met only by a second plaintive shrug, the halfling scowled. “Let’s keep moving.”

Conrad crept up to the next corner, his footsteps muted by the carpeting, and peered down the hall. Aside from Ajax Whittaker’s many paintings and statues, it seemed the old merchant’s entire private wing was empty. Given the tremors still coursing through the building, the halfling assumed the security forces had been pulled to the show floor to deal with Brooke, Zebra, and Haruhiko.

The plan was working, Conrad reassured himself. In their many late nights in the back room of the Whispering Tankard, he and Brooke had layered contingencies over contingencies, ensuring they were prepared for virtually any outcome once they had breached the complex. So far, aside from a few snags in communications—unusual indeed, where Sori D’Mani was concerned—things had played out to the halfling’s expectations. Assuming Brooke had wiped the security footage, all they had left to do was clean out the vault and use the chaos as cover to make their escape.

“That’s it there,” Baldur said, pointing a craggy finger to a door near the end of the dead-end hallway. “Last one on the left.”

The halfling nodded, running one hand through his greasy brown curls. “Got it. Cover the door, will ya? I’ll be about ten minutes… if all goes according to plan.”

“Hurry up.” The Goron’s brow furrowed with concern. “I’m worried about River.”

The halfling gave a reassuring smile. “If anyone can handle themselves, it’s River,” he said. “Trust your partner.” With that, he trotted off down the corridor.

The door swung inward on well-greased hinges, without even the slightest sound. Although Conrad had seen this room already on the footage broadcast by Haruhiko, it stole his breath all the same: plush, red carpeting ran wall to wall; rich mahogany furniture trimmed with gold; every inch of wall hung with elaborate tapestries or inlaid with etched bas-reliefs depicting historical events; and, against the opposite wall, the huge steel door of the vault. Behind it, the culmination of his weeks of effort—all the beatings and the late night strategy meetings—seemed to call to him. The normally implacable halfling’s hands trembled as he took stock of the situation. Drawing a lungful of air to steady his nerves, he stepped forward into the room.

The door shut behind him with a resounding slam. Conrad wheeled around, his eyes bulging as the writhing mass of shadow appeared. It coalesced before him, the very air in the room leaking darkness like pus from a suppurating wound. The halfling stumbled backward, eyes wide with horror, as the room came alive around him. The wall etchings wriggled and writhed, ornate figures with glowing, red eyes crawling forth from the stone. Sinewy arms with too many joints protruded from the ceiling, long claws raking the air in front of Conrad’s eyes. He dropped to his back with a strangled cry. Through the swirling chaos, the mass approached, its form growing more solidly defined—sprouting the same quills and batlike wings as it had in the interrogation room. The halfling squeezed his eyes tight, accepting his inevitable end.

Then, as quickly as it had started, it stopped. When he opened his eyes, just like the first time, the room appeared as it had when he first entered, the door ajar and the space empty of murderous creatures. Sheathed in sweat, Conrad staggered back to his feet. What the hell was going on? Had he sustained one too many head wounds in the events of the past few weeks? Had Whittaker’s goons drugged him while he was unconscious, with some potent venom or hallucinogenic drug?

“—something in the—I don’t—everyone going—”

The comms device hissed and crackled, Sori’s breaking through intermittently. Conrad snatched the device from its place on his belt and stuck it in his ear.

“Sori, do you hear me? What the hell is going on?”

“—no eyes—surveillance wiped—get out—”

Again, a sharp peal of static swallowed Sori’s voice and clanged around in Conrad’s head, forcing him to remove the device. He growled his frustration into the empty room. The glower soon melted away, replaced by a look of sheer determination.

“Enough.” He strode up to the vault, placing his ear against the metal. The lock’s tumbler was cool against his hands as he twisted it, first one way, then the other, listening for the subtle clicks and whirs indicating the locks disengaging. After a while, he felt the tumbler resist his turning, the telltale sign of a wire being drawn tight. He froze, pulling a small drill from an enchanted lock on his belt, and began drilling into the space just above the tumbler. Had he allowed the wire to snap, it would have shattered a glass pane inside the door, likely setting off an alarm and trapping Conrad inside the room. But the halfling was no novice safecracker, and he had dealt with complex traps such as these enough times to understand the underlying mechanisms.

Pulling the drill back, he peered into the tiny, dark hole he had created. The warped glint of light off glass confirmed his suspicions. Replacing the drill, he retrieved a bottle, no larger than a tube of lipstick. Two pumps of his fingers and the resin sprayed forth into the hole. He counted silently—1… 2… 3—and then engaged the tumbler again. The wire gave way with an audible snap, but the glass pane, now made firm by the coating of resin, held strong. Conrad sighed with relief as the vault door swung open.

The halfling’s breath caught in his throat as the golden glow fell over him, not warm, but suffusing him with warmth all the same. Tables piled high with gold bars, plastic trays overflowing with gems, and sheaves of yellowed parchment filled every inch of the vault. Narrow paths wound between the piles of wealth. Conrad took a moment to regain his composure before stepping inside.

While the surveillance systems had been shut down by Brooke—at least, he hoped so—, Conrad knew it was only a matter of time before an auxiliary security system either brought guards swarming upstairs from the complex show floor or worse, locked him inside the vault to await his fate. Without further ado, he began grabbing gold bars and trays of gems, shoving them greedily into another pouch on his belt. This one, a heavily ensorcelled bag of holding, swallowed the vast riches greedily, its huge interior dimensions showing no sign of filling as hundreds of pounds of precious metals and minerals were stuffed inside it. On Conrad went, clearing one table, then another, the opening of the bag adjusting to the size of the loot so he could fit delicate paintings, maps, historical texts, and other parchments. Always he kept one eye on the vault door, ready to react with typical halfling swiftness if it began to close, or if the sound of approaching footsteps or the cries of his Goron companion met his ears. But there was only silence as the little thief pocketed more wealth than he had ever imagined.

Just as he felt the pouch of holding begin to protest, filled for the first time almost to capacity, he caught sight of the true prize. Hanging on an innocuous hook on one side of the vault door, a familiar set of dangling keys caught and reflected the light. Though he was across the space and could not make out the delicately engraved writing on the side of the thin pieces of metal, he knew instinctively what they said: Gulliver.

No sooner had he taken a step toward the keys to his stolen ship, Conrad heard a warning cry from Baldur, the Goron’s voice high-pitched, relative to his usual deep, gravelly bass, with alarm. The sound of grinding metal soon followed as the vault door began to swing shut, promising to trap the halfling inside.

“Baldur!” the halfling yelped, letting the stuffed pouch fall and sprinting across the room, vaulting over tables and piles of scattered wealth. His delicate fingers closed around the keys and he spun to see the door closing quickly—too quickly for him to make his escape. The halfling lunged, his horrified gaze fixed on the thin sliver of red carpet in the room beyond, knowing in his heart that he had run out of time…

… and, just in time, the huge hand of his Goron companion darted through the opening, gripping the door and wrenching it a few inches backward, creating just enough space for the ever-fortunate halfling to dart through, landing face first on the floor of Ajax Whittaker’s office.

Post 4/9: 1,556 words.
Personal Quest Progress: 8,320/10,000 (+968)

 

[Conrad Jamboy]

Despite the success of his plan, Conrad still marveled at the lack of resistance as he and Baldur made their way through the labyrinth of hallways making up Ajax Whittaker’s private floor. Like something out of the dime novels he used to nick as a street waif, resplendence surrounded the companions on all sides. Elaborately etched bas reliefs, wall sconces inlaid with gold, and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves crammed full of no-doubt rare texts stood in stark contrast to the neon lights of the entertainment district—relics of a time before the desert city’s technological revolution.

“You sure you know the way?” the halfling asked for perhaps the fifth time?

Baldur grunted a confirmation. “A right down there, then a left into the maintenance corridors where they had you tied up. Hopefully that guard hasn’t woken up yet.”

“Hopefully,” Conrad echoed, shifting his head slightly so the Goron couldn’t see him wince. For all his life, trouble had never quite seemed to catch up to the slippery halfling. At least, until Ajax Whittaker came to Karim. Conrad had no interest in getting on Baldur’s bad side.

The walls trembled as another explosion rumbled through the complex. Whatever havoc Brooke, Zebra, and Haru had managed to wreak on the main floor seemed to have done the trick—perhaps too well, the halfling fretted, sidestepping a cascade of falling books dislodged by the tremors.

“Keep moving,” Baldur rumbled, ushering Conrad along with one huge hand.

The halfling’s little legs pumped to keep pace. “Worried about Brooke?” That elicited another grunt. “She can handle herself, you know.”

“Not here.” The rock-man tugged at the collar of his ill-fitting uniform, succeeding only in tearing free a scrap of fabric. He flicked it away and plowed forward, turning the corner toward the interrogation room.

Lapsing into silence, Conrad went over the details of the third phase of the plan. Comms were still in and out, the only true complication they had faced thus far. Every once in a while he caught a snippet of conversation, usually Sori’s voice swallowed by static, garbled and unintelligible. Without a way to communicate his success to the rest of the team, the halfling had to trust they would make it to the meeting point at the right time. And judging by the renewed rumblings from down below, that might prove to be a tall order for the ragtag band of crooks.

They passed through a door and the elegant carpets and sconces gave way to dingy concrete and flickering light bulbs. In many ways, Conrad mused, the old merchant’s complex was a microcosm of Karim itself—a city wherein one could traverse a single block from palatial manors and broad, well-kept avenues into shanty-like rows of hastily erected hovels, crowded with beggars and half-naked children. While no saint himself, the halfling still reviled the breadth of inequality plaguing his city, and in that moment pledged, if the heist were to succeed, to use some portion of his newly acquired wealth to even the odds for those like him, the disavowed paupers and urchins forced by circumstance into crime. A small portion, anyway, he thought with a wry grin. A large part of him still held to the tenets of meritocracy—that most fundamental demand that a man, whatever his stature, must earn his own way in the world, morally or otherwise.

Caught up in his thoughts, the halfling didn’t hear the terrified screams until he bumped into the back of Baldur’s leg. The Goron swept him backward with one hand, flattening himself, insofar as a nine foot tall, half-ton mass of stone and sinew can flatten itself, against the wall. Conrad unsheathed his little dagger and held his breath.

The door in front of them slammed open, releasing a cascade of flailing limbs. No fewer than a dozen well-dressed people fought their way through in a matter of seconds, stumbling, shoving, and clawing past the bewildered companions with an urgency wrought of sheer horror. If they noticed Conrad and Baldur just feet away, they gave no indication, gone down the corridor as quickly as they had arrived.

Conrad finally made the connection. “Hey, uh, big guy… you been seeing any terrifying shadow monsters in the past couple hours?”

“Nope. Why?”

“No reason.”

Baldur turned a curious look on the halfling, something not unlike a storm lurking behind his eyes, but, no doubt preoccupied by thoughts of getting back to Brooke, merely shrugged.

Following his huge companion again, Conrad started when he bumped into Baldur a second time. Expecting another surprise coming up the stairs, he peeked between the tree-like legs. The stairway was empty, silent save for the distant screams and ever-present rumbling. He looked up at the back of Baldur’s head. “Everything okay?”

The Goron turned, his broad features contorted with the same fear they had just seen on the fleeing group. His eyes darted to and fro, each movement mirrored by a jerk of his broad shoulders or a swipe of his hand, as if he was surrounded by a swarm of angry hornets.

Conrad knew that expression well. He imagined it was much like the one he wore when encountering the shadow creature in Ajax Whittaker’s office. As such, when Baldur’s stare fell over him, wide eyes narrowing and lips contorting in an enraged snarl, he managed to scramble backward in time to avoid the Goron’s sweeping leg—a kick that surely would have splattered him across the wall like so much halfling-colored paint.

“Baldur, buddy, snap out of it!” the frantic Conrad squeaked, rolling over and coming to his feet, his little legs a blur as he backtracked in the wake of a heavy punch. “I saw them too. They’re not real!”

The Goron’s foot snapped out again, deceptively quick, and Conrad dove into a forward roll between the tree-like legs. Any thought of rehabilitating his companion fled as another, larger explosion rocked the complex, dust raining down on his curly-haired head.

Turning tail, the halfling fled down the first flight of stairs, skittering around the corner just as the enraged Baldur slammed into the wall behind him. The sickening crunch of stone and resulting groan of unstable construction marked the magnitude of the impact. Conrad chanced a look back just in time to see an avalanche of dislodged concrete bury the Goron’s prone form.

Post 5/9: 1,053 words
Personal Quest Progress: 8,785 (+465)

 

[Conrad Jamboy]

Brooke tumbled backward through the open doorway of the surveillance room, plunging into a mass of screaming patrons. She and two others fell to the ground in a tangle of limbs, swallowed by the tide of the mass exodus as the crowd made for the exits, wild-eyed and swatting at hallucinated tormentors. Throwing her hands up to protect her face, she accepted the brunt of the stampede.

When the throng had passed, the battered and bruised woman climbed to her feet, just in time for another slug from Ajax Whittaker’s armed guard to send her sprawling back, the breath blasted from her lungs. The huge man advanced, sneering.

“Think you can just waltz into Ajax Whittaker’s house and get away with it, eh?” he growled, reaching for the pistol holstered on his belt.

This time, Brooke was the quicker. Her six shooter came out in a flash and she pumped the trigger once, twice, three times, each bullet striking the man center mass, sending him staggering back into the surveillance room with a roar. She heard the crash as he hit the bank of monitors, and then only silence came from the room. One of her eyes had started to swell shut from the guard’s first punch.

“Easy job my ass,” she muttered, touching one finger to the mass of purple bruises on her face. She turned, cursing the halfling who had gotten her and Baldur into this mess. “Little bastard is gonna get us—” Her eyes locked onto the rifles pointed at her chest, held by two more of Ajax Whittaker’s guards.

“—killed.” Brooke stopped short, her revolver held loosely at her side.

“Not another step,” the first guard commanded in an oddly muffled, breathy voice. She noticed he wore a sort of respirator on the bottom half of his face. That explained the behavior of the crowd—some sort of chemical agent, or hallucinogen. It explained, too, why the pandemonium surrounding them hadn’t even reacted to her gunshots.

The second guard gestured at Brooke’s revolver with a jerk of his head. “The gun, drop it and kick it over to us.”

The revolver hit the ground with a faint thud, the sound swallowed by the roar of the crowd. She kicked it and it slid most of the way over to the two guards, well out of her reach. In her ear, the comms device crackled and whined with static, a reminder of her total isolation from all of her allies.

Well, almost all of her allies.

The streak of red hair and corded muscles emerged from the corner of her vision, slamming hard into the two guards and sending them flying. Zebra pounced on the two men like a hunting cat, delivering a hail of blows that made the walloping Brooke had just taken seem positively tame. By the time he was finished, the guards more closely resembled lumps of ground beef than anything approximating a human.

“Overkill?” Brooke asked, arching an eyebrow.

Zebra stood, wiping his forehead with the back of a torn sleeve. He flashed a grin that looked like it had a dozen extra teeth in it. “No such thing.”

Brooke smirked. Despite herself, the bottomless stomach was growing on her. “So… have you been, uh, seeing things?”

“Shadow monsters, teeth and claws and spikes, all that shit?” Zebra asked, nodding. He raised his tattered sleeve to reveal a bruised and scraped forearm. “Not real. Learned that the hard way.”

“Whittaker’s guards are wearing some kind of respirator. Whatever it is, I think it’s airborne.” Brooke knelt beside the dead guards and fished the respirators from within the folds of torn and bleeding flesh. Apart from a few scuffs and dents, they seemed to have withstood Zebra’s punishment much better than their owners. “Here. Put this on.”

The blonde-haired woman slipped the respirator into her mouth, taking a few experimental breaths to make sure it was working properly. Satisfied, she retrieved her pistol and snagged one of the guards’ rifles for good measure, slinging it over one shoulder.

Zebra forewent the guns—they weren’t his style—but used his respirator as well. Anything to keep the damned shadow creatures from distracting him. “Got the time?” he asked. “Still no comms, but it’s gotta be about time to link up with Conrad and Baldur.”

“Past time,” Brooke agreed. “Assuming they aren’t dead, at least.”

Another explosion across the room triggered a renewed round of shrill, panicked screams, disparate throngs of panicked patrons rushing toward them and away from the source of the blast, where flames licked the ceiling and thick plumes of black smoke belched out from the charred husks of rows of slot machines.

Zebra grimaced. “Let’s get down to the hangar, then,” he said, shouldering his way through the nearest crowd, Brooke following closely in his wake. “I’m starving.”

Post 6/9: 803 words.
Personal Quest Progress: 9,022 (+237)

 

[Conrad Jamboy]

Exiting the stairwell at the complex’s ground floor, Conrad emerged into sheer pandemonium. Well-dressed men and women rushed about in a frenzy, the more composed among them heading generally toward the exits while most, still swatting at, fleeing from, or cowering before imagined monstrosities, seemed to have no sense of direction at all, colliding with each other as often as the walls, gambling tables, and chairs littering the room. Fires had started here and there, small for now but spreading rapidly. From one corner, smoke poured from a mountain of rubble and torn metal, hanging over the crowd like thunderclouds.

Conrad scanned the cavernous room briefly, searching for some sign of Brooke, Zebra, or Haru. When he heard the distinct retort of three loud gunshots, he decided better of sticking around, instead cutting left and heading toward an elevator and another stairwell, both of which descended into the bowels of the complex.

Beneath the place, the blueprints had revealed a labyrinth of maintenance tunnels and bunkers several stories below ground. At first they had thought little of the area, having rightly gleaned from Conrad’s network of informants that the vault was not located below ground, but rather in Ajax Whittaker’s private wing of the complex. However, one room in particular, connected to the main complex only by a single long tunnel had piqued, of all people, Davroar Milner’s interest.

“That right there’s a hangar,” the innkeeper had said confidently, poking the blueprint with a grubby finger.

Conrad and Brooke, the last two standing as sunlight began to filter through the windows of the Whispering Tankard, had peered at the paper.

“What makes you say that?” the halfling had asked.

Davroar had frowned at them. “Pipsqueak, ye don’t think I know an underground hangar when I see one? Ye practically live in mine, ain’t that right?” He traced his finger along the connecting tunnel. “Set aside from the rest of the buildin’, yeah? Can’t exactly be flyin’ a ship right up through yer own casino! Thought it was a bunker or escape route first, but look at the size of it. Not even Whittaker’s prissy ass needs space like that for anything but ships.”

“So that might be where he…”

The innkeeper had grinned at Conrad triumphantly. “Yep. Betcha a year o’ free drinks that’s where the bastard’s keepin’ yer Gulliver.”

“Dav, if we get that far, none of us will ever worry about money again.”

Those last words echoed in his mind as Conrad trotted up to the elevator, glancing around to see if he was being watched. The thought of how much wealth he now carried—enough to buy up half of Karim, it seemed, and to expand his empire across the Crossroads—sent a shiver of excitement up his spine. “From street waif to king, Conrad Jamboy,” he whispered, before reaching out to grasp the door handle.

“Conrad!”

The halfling recognized Brooke’s voice immediately, wheeling around as she and Zebra ran up to him. “Why if it isn’t my distractions!” he said. “Think you might have done your bit with a little more subtlety?”

“Not us,” Zebra said raspily, poking at the respirator in his mouth. “Something else. In the air, causing some wicked fuckin’ visions.”

“Yeah, I’m acquainted,” Conrad said. “I think I’m over the worst of it now.”

Zebra eyed him up and down, looking disappointed. “You get the loot?”

Patting the bag of holding cinched tightly at his waist, Conrad grinned mischievously. “A king’s ransom, and then some. You could swim in it!”

“Might just spend it,” the red-haired brawler replied. “I could use a good meal.”

The halfling turned his grin on Brooke, but it faded fast when he noted her concerned expression.

“Baldur?” she asked.

There is was: the question he had hoped to avoid. Conrad glanced down at his furry feet. “I tried, Brooke, I really did, but I—he—I mean, the hallucinations, they—”

The blonde grabbed his shoulders and hoisted him roughly into the air, bringing the halfling up to eye level. “Spit it out, Conrad! What the fuck happened?”

“He attacked me, Brooke.” More worried than threatened, Conrad eyed Brooke without fear. “The visions got the better of them, and he—well, he thought I was one of those… things.”

“And you…”

Conrad’s eyes went wide and he shook his head vigorously. “No, I didn’t hurt him! All I did was run away. You know Baldur, Brooke. One punch from him and you could have spread me on toast.”

“So what happened?” Brooke asked again, enunciating each word, her voice thick, trapped somewhere between concern and anger.

“He was chasing me down the stairs. I got out of the way, but he must have lost his balance, or… I don’t know. He fell into the wall and the wall fell on him—buried him.”

A sudden clarity took over Brooke’s face. “So you didn’t see him die?”

Conrad shook his head. “I just assumed…”

The halfling hit the ground before he could finish his sentence, stumbling back and wheeling his arms to stay on his feet. Sprinting back into the crowd, Brooke didn’t even look back. Conrad opened his mouth to cry out, but Zebra’s iron grasp on his shoulder cut him short.

“Let her go,” the brawler said. “More for us, if you follow my meaning.”

Watching as Brooke’s bobbing ponytail disappeared from sight, Conrad nodded. He knew there was nothing he could do except to chase the woman—no chance of talking any sense into her, or to try to explain that there was no way Baldur had survived being buried under tons of concrete, but the situation left a bitter taste in his mouth nonetheless. Of all the members of his ragtag band, she had been the most instrumental in the plan’s success. To abandon her now felt… wrong. It was a feeling the halfling was unaccustomed to, but it settled like a stone in the pit of his stomach.

“Okay,” he said finally. “Let’s get out of here.”

Post 7/9: 996 words.
Personal Quest Progress: 9,451 (+429)

 

[Conrad Jamboy]

Down and down they went, Zebra taking the lead and the halfling bringing up the rear. The towering gourmet felt his stomach rumbling and grimaced. The sooner they were out of this place and back in Davroar’s inn, where the food was plentiful if not particularly tasty, the better.

“Have you heard from Haru?” Conrad asked, as if he had suddenly remembered their party had once contained a sixth member.

Zebra shook his head, glancing back. “Not a peep from that one. Not since the comms went down.”

“Lovely,” the halfling grumbled.

“More for us,” the gourmet reiterated. “We’re crooks, kid, not priests. Rule number one: stick to the plan, or deal with the shitstorm of consequences that comes next.”

The stairs gave way to a small landing and a single white door. To the right of the door, a keypad with a blinking red indicator signalled to the two heisters that without a password, they had likely reached the end of the road. Conrad paced back and forth, his mind whirring through his encounter with Ajax Whittaker and what little time he had spent in the merchant’s home. He cursed himself for sipping brandy and daydreaming in front of the man’s hearth instead of searching for information.

The halfling looked at Zebra and frowned. “Without Sori’s help, I’ve got nothing.”

“I do,” Zebra winked. Faster than Conrad’s eye could follow, his hand snapped out and smashed into the keypad. An explosion of sparks and a shrill beep, winding quickly down to a faint hum, preceded the click and groan of the door opening and swinging wide. “I brought a key.”

Shaking his head, Conrad followed the huge man through the door. “I thought that stuff only worked in stories.”

Zebra shrugged. “Maybe this is a story.”

The corridor beyond wasn’t what they expected, and certainly lent some credence to Zebra’s idea. Instead of the dull gray walls and dim light bulbs of maintenance tunnels, they had emerged into the stark whiteness of a series of hallways and chambers that looked more like the wing of a futuristic hospital than the bowels of an entertainment complex. Walls of sleek chrome reflected bright fluorescent light, punctuated occasionally by door or a bank of windows. Everything was immaculately clean.

Conrad crept past the first door, noting a plaque that read Lab 1. He drew a breath, peeked into the window, and exhaled when he noted no movement inside. His eyes widened when he took in the lab benches laden with chemistry equipment, blackboards with formulas scrawled in chalk, and, against the far wall, row after row of tanks containing venomous creatures of all shapes and sizes, from Conrad’s favored snakes to more exotic creatures from far-off Kraw and Cevanti, and even some he didn’t recognize.

The puzzle pieces came together. All the whispers of Ajax Whittaker in the closely-guarded underworld circles of assassins and black marketeers, the decline in business over the past six months, the sudden influx of poisons he had struggled to identify, all of it made sense in an instant. The halfling closed his eyes and raised his fingers to his temples. How had he been so naive? The old merchant wasn’t smuggling in poisons from offworld—he was manufacturing them himself, right here in Karim, under Conrad’s nose.

“Conrad?” Zebra muttered, coming up alongside the halfling.

All this time, he had struggled to figure out how Ajax’s supply lines could have made it into Karim while still escaping his notice. Conrad’s network of informants had tabs on virtually every access point for smugglers into and out of the city. Now, he understood the full extent of his folly, and the futility of his attempts to stem the bleeding all these months—all the wasted coin he spent fattening the purses of informants who inevitably returned empty-handed—all the sleepless nights and listless days behind the counter of an empty shop. An anger flared up in the halfling, burning more intensely even than his rage upon discovering his missing ship.

Then he noticed something even more alarming. In one corner of the laboratory, a device had been affixed to a vent on the wall. Into the device, half a dozen tubes pumped different colored liquids from a sequence of beakers sitting on burners on a nearby table. The machine vibrated steadily, pale pink vapor pouring out of it and into the complex’s ventilation system. Conrad couldn’t begin to guess at the solutes and solvents being fed into the device, but he was certain of one thing: the pandemonium up above—the inexplicable hallucinations and frenzy of the complex’s guests—was no accident. Ajax Whittaker wasn’t only making poisons…

… he was making biological weapons.

“Conrad!” Zebra repeated, nudging Conrad with one knee.

“What?” the halfling snapped, looking up, and then following the red-haired man’s outstretched arm with his gaze.

Up ahead at a fork in the corridor, perhaps ten yards away, a wiry, bald man in a lab coat stood with a clipboard in hand, eyeing them with alarm. His stare shifted anxiously from the intruders to a bright red panel on the wall a few paces to his right. For several long moments, no one moved.

“Good sir,” Conrad greeted, a waver in his voice betraying his anxiety. “My friend and I seem to have wandered off the beaten path, if you follow my meaning. With all the chaos upstairs, we must have lost our way.”

The man said nothing, evidently trying to decide if he could make it to the alarm panel before being buried beneath four-hundred pounds of red hair and muscles. He shifted his posture to the right, almost imperceptibly, his eyes never leaving Conrad’s. Sweat beaded on his brow as he sized up his odds.

“Good sir?” Conrad said again, well aware that his ruse had already failed but hoping to buy a few more precious moments. “Can you help us?”

The next several seconds appeared to Conrad to occur in slow motion. The man pivoted on his heel and lunged for the button on the alarm panel in the same instant that Zebra exploded into motion, the gourmet brawler’s long legs covering the distance to the man almost immediately. In his frame of view, the halfling could only see the man’s fingers, fully outstretched as they brushed against the button. Zebra collided with the man and bore him down to the ground, a single punch eliciting a resounding snap and crunch of vertebrae.

For a moment, the halfling thought Zebra had been fast enough. Then the corridor filled with the blaring peals of alarm sirens, followed closely by the thud of a thick metal panel slamming down in the doorway back up to the complex’s main floor. Conrad started as a second panel blocked the door to Lab 1. Then each of the windows were covered, and the lights in the corridor flicked from white to red.

Flashing back to the blueprints pinned to the wall in the back room of the Whispering Tankard, the halfling shot off as if launched from a slingshot, zipping right past Zebra, who still knelt over his unfortunate victim, his arms pumping and his hands wet with blood.

“Oy!” Zebra roared, looking up when he noticed the movement. “Wait for me, ya little shit!”

Post 8/9: 1,212 words
Personal Quest Progress: 10,096/10,000 COMPLETE (+645)

 

[Conrad Jamboy]

Without time to pause and consider the horrifying implications of their discovery, Zebra and Conrad sprinted through the labyrinth of corridors. The sound of slamming metal panels chased them further into the substructure. While they encountered no immediate resistance, the companions heard echoed shouts approaching from all sides, and knew it was only a matter of time. Conrad wished dearly for his crossbow, well aware he would be of little use when more fighting ensued.

Coming around the corner to the long tunnel separating the hangar—or, at least, what Conrad prayed was the hangar—from the rest of the substructure, they skidded up short. No fewer than a score of guards filled the corridor, rifles leveled at the companions. Behind them, a final, resounding slam signaled that the way back was no longer an option, sealing their fate.

“Get behind me,” Zebra murmured tersely, shifting his bulk to protect the halfling.

Or to protect the loot, Conrad thought wryly. The indictment of the ‘more for us’ mentality among crooks happened to be that it very quickly became ‘more for me.’

The halfling noted a flash of color in the back of the pack of uniformly black-clad guards. A shifting of legs and shoulders cleared a narrow path, through which Ajax Whittaker emerged. The old merchant looked much the same as he had during their last encounter, a thin veneer of confident ambivalence betrayed by the stark fury in his eyes.

“Conrad Jamboy, I should have known,” Ajax spat. “Couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you?”

“Afraid not,” the halfling replied, surprised by the boldness of his own voice. “You took my ship. I had to return the favor.”

The old merchant threw his head back and barked a laugh. “Don’t you see, you fucking rodent? I was going to let you live. That bucket of bolts was a small price to pay for crossing me. But now… now, I’m afraid you’ve seen too much. The days of meddling Conrad Jamboy have reached their end.”

At Conrad’s side, Zebra inhaled steadily, the air hissing through his teeth as his chest slowly expanded. The red-haired bruiser had explained this technique to the rest of the crew in the days before the heist. Usually a single, huge inhalation allowed the attack to be carried out in just a few seconds, but to escape notice… the halfling knew he had to buy his companion time if they had any hope of wriggling out of this trap.

“There’s just one thing I don’t understand, Ajax,” the halfling said, ignoring the old merchants threats.

Ajax chuckled again. “And what’s that?”

“Why here? What could you hope to gain? Surely you could have carried out your little experiment without burning your own complex to the ground, no?”

“But that’s just it, isn’t it?” Ajax retorted. “With my complex burned to the ground, who would possibly suspect old Ajax Whittaker of manufacturing the most lethal toxin in the Crossroads? I’ll put Porphyrus Parch to shame, that wanna-be!”

Conrad smiled inwardly as the oratory continued.

“Just imagine: an entire city, destroyed from the inside. No longer will conquerors need to conduct sieges or protracted battles. There will be no risk of the peasants uprising to usurp the power of their rightful rulers. These are not new concepts, Conrad Jamboy... turning the weak and the ignorant against each other—consolidating wealth. No, I have simply distilled the levers of power. Expediency is the key to success, after all.” The old merchant wound down, staring at Conrad expectantly, his aquiline expression not unlike a great bird circling its prey.

“Cool,” Conrad said.

“Cool?” Ajax echoed, disbelievingly.

The halfling nodded. “I’d say more, but I usually let my friend here do the talking.” The inhalation at his side stopped. A few of the gathered guards jostled nervously, picking up on the sudden lack of subtle background noise.

“Machine Gun Voice!” Zebra roared, impossibly loudly, the sound taking form and filling the space like a gale force wind. Before Conrad’s eyes, the technique took shape, the very air warping into the shape of countless tiny projectiles, each closing the distance to Ajax and the guards in the blink of an eye. Like tiny explosions, the projectiles detonated, tearing through armor and flesh alike.

The tunnel filled with the agonized screams of the injured and dying as Zebra calmed, glancing down at Conrad with a wink.

“Nice trick,” the halfling remarked.

Zebra laughed. “Could say the same to you. Now let’s go.”

They ran past the prone forms of the merchant and his entourage, the men either unconscious or too preoccupied with their wounds to offer any further resistance. The door at the end of the tunnel did not have a keypad like the first, and slid upward in response to their movement, disappearing into the ceiling and revealing the cavernous space beyond.

A veritable fleet of ships of all shapes and sizes filled the hangar. Off to the right, a big-bellied freighter hung from the ceiling by lengths of chain thicker than Baldur’s torso. To Conrad’s left, a row of sleek jet fighters had been outfitted with delivery systems for Ajax Whittaker’s new weapon. The halfling recognized the same system of tubes running into a central tank, which had been affixed to a sprayer. With tech like this, the old merchant could blanket entire cities in his neurotoxin and escape undetected.

The halfling clenched his fists with barely contained rage. Everything he vilified in Karim’s high society, it seemed, was encapsulated in that one man, Ajax Whittaker. Greed, power, control… all at the expense of those he saw to be beneath him. Conrad had been the little guy, both literally and figuratively, his entire life, and to see the mechanisms of suppression laid so bare before him boiled his blood. Something had to be done.

“That one yours?” Zebra asked anxiously, noting the sound of guards in the tunnel behind them groaning and climbing back to their feet. He pointed across the hangar to a shadowy corner, where Gulliver sat gathering dust.

Huffing a sigh of relief, Conrad nodded. He pulled the keyring from a deep pouch and twirled it around one slender finger. “That’s her.”

“Kind of puny, isn’t it?”

“It’s not the size, dear Zebra,” the halfling drawled. “It’s how you fly it.”

“If you say so.”

The sharp retort of gunfire interrupted their repartee and sent them both scrambling, their arms up over their heads. Conrad took the lead this time, Zebra insisting he could take a few bullets and live to tell the tale. And take a few he did as they covered the hundred-or-so yards to Gulliver, each distinct puncturing sound accompanied by a soft grunt from the stoic gourmet. Conrad pressed a series of buttons on the electronic key, the first opening the loading bay, the second engaging the thrusters, and the third activating the stealth technology. The ship—at least, all but the innards of the ship visible through the open loading bay—began to shimmer as it took on the colors of the shadowy wall and workbenches behind it.

Zebra got hit again, this time staggering. “Too slow, ya bite-sized prick!” he growled, grabbing the halfling by the nape of his shirt and hurling him forward.

Conrad soared the last thirty feet through the air, bouncing and skidding through the loading bay and into the ship. He groaned and wagged his head, shaking away the pain and the bright lights dancing in the corners of his vision. “You try running with legs this short,” he growled, climbing to his feet and running to the cockpit. The gunfire still followed them, ricocheting off the hull and peppering the wall in front of the ship.

“Shit,” Conrad muttered. “Shit. Shit. Shit.”

The diminutive smuggling ship rocked and jostled as Zebra’s bulk crashed down inside the loading bay. “Close the goddamn door!” Blood poured from a half dozen bullet wounds.

The halfling hardly paid attention to his companion, his gaze never leaving the lever protruding from the wall about ten yards to the left of the ship. He traced a path with his eyes from that lever up the wall, the reinforced cable zigzagging up and up to the huge hatch on the hangar’s ceiling: the only way out of the complex.

“Shit.”

“What are you doing?!” Zebra howled, pinning himself to the wall to avoid a fresh hail of bullets.

“Can’t close it,” Conrad said, mustering up every bit of courage he could cram into his tiny frame. “Zebra, I need you to take the wheel. We can’t get out of here if I don’t open that hatch.”

Zebra eyed the ship’s navigation system—a wide panel packed with flashing indicators, switches, and dials—and scoffed. “The wheel? It’s a fucking science experiment!”

“It’s easy. Just use this joystick here to swing it around, and then once I’m back inside—” he pointed to a yellow flashing button—“hit this button to close the door.”

Without time to confirm whether Zebra had understood the instructions, Conrad was out of his seat and sprinting back out of the ship, his furry feet hitting the cold floor and pivoting hard to the right. Bullets whizzed past, striking the cement with sprays of concrete shards and dust. Over the cacophony, he heard the voice of Ajax Whittaker.

“Get them, god damn it!” the old merchant screamed. “Get them!”

Conrad didn’t even look to see how close the guards were. He yanked the lever just as Zebra seemed to get a hang for the steering, swinging the ship around in a tight arc, one outside thruster hitting the cement wall and tearing free a chunk of concrete. The thrusters, now warmed up, flared with bright red warmth. Up above, the clank and grind of enormous mechanisms engaging signaled the opening of the escape hatch.

It felt like a pinprick, the halfling would recall later—the slightest sensation of pain, piercing through the sheer adrenaline of the moment. Then it felt like a hand shoving him backward. Conrad blinked and he was on his ass, his arm hanging weirdly at his side and his tunic stained a murky brown as blood leaked freely from the entry wound. Twisting and planting his arms beneath him, he managed to shove himself forward and onto his feet before the arm gave way, leaving him face down on the floor again. He crawled, the loading bay door now mere feet away, as the first guard fell over him, grabbing at his clothes with coarse hands and dragging him backward.

“No!” The scream rose from his throat like that of a feral beast. In a single, fluid motion, he whipped Soulsticker from his belt and slashed across the man’s exposed throat, the moment the blade pierced the man’s skin Conrad felt a brief surge of warmth and the feeling returned to the fingers of his wounded arm. He kicked out, driving the man back, and spun to his feet, stumbling and tripping into the loading bay.

“Hit the yellow button,” Conrad screamed, as the renewed gunfire and the enraged merchant’s screams followed him into the ship. Zebra, still uncomfortable at the controls, obliged, and the door began to rise, whizzing bullets ricocheting to and fro.

“This ain’t so hard!” Zebra flashed a too-wide grin, his face drawn and pale from loss of blood. “Hell, this is the most fun I’ve had in a long goddamn time, ya puny bastard!”

Conrad gestured frantically for the huge man to vacate the cockpit. “Can’t say the same, I’m afraid. Out of the way. Let’s blow this Popsicle stand.” He settled into the familiar chair, ignoring the burning sensation returning to his shoulder, his nimble fingers flashing across the control panel. With practiced ease, he jerked the handle and the ship blasted forward, guards leaping aside to avoid being bludgeoned by its hull.

The hatch above them had already started to close. Predictably, another guard must have reached the lever and reversed it, hoping to seal them inside. But Conrad Jamboy was far more slippery than that. A flick of his wrist engaged the secondary thrusters, hurling the ship through the narrow exit by mere inches, sparks spraying as metal screeched against metal. The tunnel snaked ahead before them and he deftly maneuvered left, right, and then, mercifully, they emerged from a cliff face and into the open, starlit sky.

Post 9/9: 2,061 words