Downtown Druid

Book 3 Chapter 39: I Heard You Have Food

Dantes sat in the center of the Undermarket, in a small shack made of living wood that he’d willed to grow into the proper shape, with Celeste sitting next to him idly shifting her form to pass the time. There was a line of men waiting to reach him, most wearing rags, and a number of them even less than that. He was guarded by his six men from the surface, all of whom were well fed, dressed, and armed in sharp contrast to the line moving toward them.

Another man, a gnome with a scraggly beard, stepped onto the small wooden box provided for those his size and looked up at Dantes.

“Uh, I heard you have food.”

Dantes reached down and pulled a small bag from behind himself. It was filled with edible mushrooms, fruits and veggies.

The gnome reached for it, and Dantes pulled it away. “Promise on your name that you’ll owe me a favor.”

“I swear it, on my name as Tiltz.”

Dantes shook his hand and celeste placed hers on top of the handshake. Dantes felt something pass between the three of them, and then took the gnome’s hand and pricked his finger, letting a single drop of blood drop into a sack of seeds behind the counter.

“What the hells!?”

“Just needed a drop,” he handed the gnome the sack of food and he took it and ran quickly away to hide and eat it. He was probably safest eating it right in front of Dantes, but so far their paranoia had kept any of them from coming to that conclusion. Dantes called up the next person, a young half-orc with a bit of halfling in him, and started the process over again.

He’d been growing sustainable food down in the Pit since he arrived, making sure that his gardens were full of food. He’d done the same on the surface when he was there, he’d even been having rats and pigeons begin to seed the area around the Pit, slowly turning a mess of concrete and dirt into a thriving garden. He’d realized during the Plague that Serpica had spread that the largest weakness Rendhold had was its inability to grow its own food in a crisis. Sure there were some farms near the city that it owned, but what they could produce was dwarfed by the city’s size. As such a large amount of the food was imported. His investment had proven wise, as now that there was a threat of invasion, the drops of food into the Pit had been cut off completely. It was a dreadful time, and a perfect one for him to take advantage of.

It had been easy to recruit Celeste to his effort, she would’ve likely helped just for the love of the game, but had held out for promises of food for her and the other changelings. He didn’t mind that, he likely would’ve helped them out anyway. As he bled the young orcs finger into his bag of seeds he sent a silent command to them.

Dantes shook his head, and shifted his attention back to the Frasheid camp. While his eyes were closed he started to sketch out a map of their camp while having some rats and roaches search for any of them that might be discussing what their exact plan was. He wouldn’t help directly until he had some guarantees, but indirectly it made sense to at least give whatever information he could to Argenta to pass on to the guard.

He eventually found a large tent with several white and gray haired men smoking tobacco.

“Easy campaign boys. We set up the artillery and bombard them until the walls fall. The city is a cesspool of the sick with hardly any forces of their own. Once we breach the walls, we’ll loot the damn place like the filthy old pirates we are.”

That drew a chuckle from the rest of them.

“As long as we can get in before Viscent arrives... I don’t want to share with those short fucks.”

“They volunteered for the hard job. Rendhold’s Navy isn’t something to trifle with. As long as we get in first we can do whatever we want and blame the men’s enthusiasm on hurting any of the things we already agreed they could have. We’ll just have the diplomats sort it out. Then we can take all this loot back home, support the men putting down the revolt, and take our usual turns with Franklin’s wife.”

Another round of laughter.

“Ah, fuck you ya old bastard. You couldn’t even find it under that gut, much less put it in my wife.”

Dantes opened his eyes, sensing someone approaching from outside the audience chamber. One of the bouncers walked in holding a letter that he handed to Dantes. It was sealed in wax with an intricate letter ‘A’ in black ink. He broke the seal and opened it.

The Finger aligned with Godfrey has played his hand.