As Arthur watched the ex-gangsters file into the room, he mentally reviewed the exact promise he’d made with Lady Pigeonette.
From what he could recall, she’d been insistent that he not sell anything to the gangs. Which, he supposed, made sense because he bet the last thing that The Assembly wanted was for their enemies to resupply. Not when starving them out may be a legitimate tactic.
“So?” Arthur asked as Augustus moved to block off access to the backroom. “Talk.”
“Nope.” The group’s leader smirked as he touched the counter. “If you want information, you need to pay for it. We want that quest.”
“How did you know about that?” He frowned, trying to think if he’d shown that to Riccardo at any point. No moments came to mind.
“Quest first.”
Their smile grew as they spoke, and they leaned casually on the counter. Augustus let out a sharp hiss, and they backed up a step.
“Fine. Here.”
175Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYpNSuKeFsp“I’m sure.” He waved. “So, you have the quest. Are you going to tell me what you know, or do I have Theobold throw you out?”
That earned him a snort, but Kurt nodded as he smoothed out his suit jacket. “Fine. There is no need for threats. What would you like to know first?”
Arthur thought about that, and honestly, he had quite a few questions. One of his biggest concerns was knowing why the man was here. Followed by how he knew about the City Guide quest, even in passing. Third, why they thought that turning up here was a good idea?175Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwDfS6EwSUH
A small part of him also wanted to ask about the bag of coins that he’d seen the man put in his pocket. However, he quashed that and did his best to sound commanding.
“Why are you here?”
Kurt scoffed. “To give you a warning, of course.”
Arthur waited, and Kurt glanced at the box as though he was expecting something to happen. When nothing did, he cleared his throat. “My pay?”
“Ok, this is clearly a set-up.” He thought as he looked at the gangster. “The question is, who sent him? Though The Cult is the only actual option. Unless The Knights betrayed me, but that seems unlikely. Perhaps one of The Archetypes? Again, that doesn’t seem likely. Let’s see if we can get him to admit it.”
A smirk graced his face, and he nodded towards Kurt, who was glancing almost anxiously between him and the box. “If you read the quest, you’ll see that it mentioned unknown information. When you arrived, you mentioned you were here to deliver a warning. I’ll need more details before I can pay.”
“I see.” Kurt breathed in, his nostrils flaring, before he once more smoothed his suit. Hand gliding over what Arthur assumed was an inner pocket. He stroked the spot before he cleared his throat and continued.
“Fine. Fine. I’m here to give you a warning that the cult has talked to members of Riccardo’s old crew. They want our help to mess with you.”
Arthur blinked as he saw the prompt telling him of a completed quest. Almost mechanically, he reached into the box and set two coins on the counter. A quick hand swept them up before Kurt bounced them into his palm.
The man was smiling as he turned to his friends.
“It worked.”
Laughter rang out, and he saw Theobold move in. With a slight shake of his head, he tried to tell them to stay still. It appeared to work, but he couldn’t blame him for being anxious. There was something wrong here—an atmosphere he didn’t like.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Oh, that’s simple.” Kurt grinned and gave a theatrical shrug. “Because we want your money.”
Another notification appeared informing him of the quest’s completion; this time he was slower to hand the money over. However, he still did, as his gaze locked onto Kurt’s face. His next words came out low and slow.
“Did the cult tell you about my quest?”
“Yes.”
Two more coins.
“What was the end plan?”
“I give you basic intel until you either refuse to give me money or run out.”
Two more coins.
“What happens if I refuse?”
“We’ll tell everyone you wouldn’t pay out and how cheap you are.”
Arthur laughed. His stomach hurt as he slapped a hand on the counter. He heard Theobold let out a snort from the door. “I’m sorry, what?”
“We’ll tell everyone how cheap you are. Destroy your reputation.”
“By doing what? Telling people I won’t pay out to people who worked for a guy whose sister threatened to kill me?”
The mirth in his voice only grew as he watched Kurt’s face redden. One man behind him raised his bat, but a squeak from Augustus stopped him in his tracks.
“Do you want to know what I think?” He asked.
“What?” Kurt spat.
“They wanted to see if I would let you in. This entire scheme was to see what would happen. You wouldn’t know why they bothered with all this, would you?” Arthur leaned back in his chair, his pipe held tightly in one hand.
“Because I didn’t tell you the entire truth,” Kurt said as his group gripped their weapons tighter.
“Oh?” Arthur pulled out two coins, keeping them under his fingers as he pushed them forward.
“They didn’t like your new business strategy.”
At that, the man with the bat turned and swung at one of the stacked chairs.
***
Chaos ensued as the wreckage from the chair landed on the shop’s floor.
Augustus tackled Kurt to the ground, squealing as he bit and hissed at the squirming man. Theobold drew second blood as he rushed in through the door, his sword piercing the back of a man who was taking a pipe to the legs of an upside-down table.
The man with the bat tripped on the wreckage of the chair as he attempted to flee. Arthur stood, his cane gripped in his hand, as he moved out to help. Not that he needed to. Kurt was no longer moving, and Augusts moved on all fours as he snatched up the bat wielder from the ground in his mouth.
As he finished them, Theobold hacked at the last one. Sword met pipe as the gangster desperately tried to ward off the ex-knight.
“Call him off!” He screamed. “I’ll leave; I’m sorry.”
Arthur ignored him, transfixed by the scene before him as he watched Augustus go almost feral on the man on the floor. He wasn’t sure how long the fight lasted, but he was glad when it ended. Bile rose in his throat, but he forced it down. Now wasn’t the time.
“Are you too okay?”
“Pfft, not even scratched,” Theobold boasted as Augustus stood up with a nod.
Blood dripped from the rat’s face, and Arthur tried not to breathe too deeply as he pointed towards the box in the basement. “Go clean up. Theobold, strip them of their stuff.”
“You don’t want to use the loot system, boss?”
Arthur paused, staring at the corpses on the ground. His mind flashed back to the battle, all those corpses on the ground outside his store. Alyssa and the knights had taken care of the corpses, claiming their gear as spoils of war.
At the time, he’d been happy to make the exchange. Not that he’d been in any proper state to refuse. He’d never tried to loot a human the same way as a monster, and as he looked at the bodies, he didn’t want to start.
It took little to imagine the goddess giving him their skeletons as a joke.
“No. Strip their clothes and weapons. I’ll help.”
That he knew he could do too, though it wasn’t easy. All of his self-control went into staying steady as he reached into the man’s pocket. The bag was there, and the coins he’d given him earlier nestled beside it.
Even in his distracted state, he thought that was odd. With difficulty, he stripped the bodies of their jackets, shirts, shoes, and socks, though he left the pants where they were. He refused to go that far on principle.
“Where do you want me to put the bodies?”
For a moment, he thought about putting them downstairs as DNA for the mutagenic tube. However, giving them the same burial as his friends didn’t feel right.
“Put them in the rickshaw and go take them somewhere else. I don’t want to look at them.”
“Yes, boss.” Theobold said as he snapped off a salute, though he didn’t leave.
Arthur stared at him. “Yes?”
“Make yourself a cup of tea or something. You don’t look good.”
“Will do. Thanks Theobold.”
At that, Theobold nodded and left the room, carrying a corpse over the back of his shoulder. Once he was gone, Arthur moved into the back room, ready to make himself another cup of coffee. He was going to need it after today.
***
When he entered, he found Nyssa had already made one.
She passed him the cup before she leaned against the counter and gestured to a spot beside her. Together, they stood and drank, neither speaking as they simply processed what had happened.
“That was crazy,” Nyssa said as he put her empty cup on the counter.
Her words were devoid of any emotion, and he could see her staring out the door at the shop floor. From his position, he could see a small pool of blood with some additional streaks. For a moment, he wondered if Augustus had caused those, but he shook his head to dismiss the thought.
Still, not a small amount of pride welled up as he thought back on the fight. He’d defended his hoard from people who wanted to steal it. That was right. His hands trembled around his cup as he took another drink.
“It was. Are you ok?”
“No,” she said without hesitation.
He turned to face her, and he could see her shoulders shaking. She was still staring out the door as she spoke. One hand reached up to run through her hair, and she looked as though she was about to shiver even with the hot drink she’d consumed.
“That. They came into the store, Arthur?” Her voice wavered as she spoke, and with one hand, she gestured into the room. “I thought we were done with that. After Riccardo... well.”
Even though she went quiet, he could tell from the way she gestured at the air that she wasn’t done. So, he simply waited as he made them both more coffee. Once she took a sip of her refill, she sighed.
“Sorry, I’m not used to violence.” Her voice shook, and he could see her shivering. The fear was clear in her face, and he didn’t blame her. That scene wasn’t pleasant, and he was running through ideas on how to stop it from happening again.
For the moment, though, she needed an answer, and he focused on that.
“Good.” The words came out bluntly, and he nodded. “You shouldn’t be. Things like that aren’t your department.”
She snorted. “No, I suppose not. But you died doing my job, right?”
That brought him up short, and he took a sip before he answered. The bitter taste of the coffee somehow made his next words easier.
“Yes. But it won’t happen to you.”
“How can you be sure?” There were tears in her eyes as she looked at them. “How do you know?”
Arthur shrugged, wishing he could tell her that everything would be alright. However, the words wouldn’t come. So he settled on the truth, which was far less fun.
“I don’t. But we have advantages, and if we play it smart, it should be fine. What do you need from me?”
“I need to paint,” she said, as one of her hands played with her tail.
Slight movements caused the tip to trace through the air, making shapes and patterns with no real purpose. As he watched her and saw the sullen slope of her shoulders, a thought came to him.
“A distraction might help.”
“Ok. I actually wanted to talk to you about doing some artwork for me, sort of.”
“Oh?” She looked at him, still tearful, but now focused on him.
“Yeah. I thought that now that we have all the different monster meat, maybe a menu would be helpful? Have any ideas?”
After placing her coffee down, she wiped her eyes and nodded.
“Um. Sure. We could use some of those hides? If you have something to cut them into strips, I could paint something on that. Maybe put a sign out the front?”
“That would be great. I’m sure we can find something, or worse comes to worst. Augustus might rip them into shape. Why don’t you grab a few and head to the basement to whip something up?”175Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡR6VkKAdylE
“You don’t want me to help you clean up?” With one hand, she waved toward the door, but Arthur shook his head.
“No, it’s fine. We have enough rags that it’ll be fine. Feel free to take the smaller box downstairs to look through it. I’ll get to work here.”
She nodded and gave him a small smile. “Thanks Arthur.”
“No problem, Nyssa.”
As she took the box downstairs, he looked at the floor and sighed. A few bottles of water and some of the cleaned rat hides sat on the counter.
“Next time, I’m making them do this outside,” he thought as he looked around.
Arthur knew this was all to distract himself. To not let him think about the violence that occurred. A simple task he could lose himself in. However, it was what he needed.
Thus, with a roll of his shoulders and a flick of the coin, he got to work.
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