Alice and I made private plans with Angelina then. We didn’t tell anyone else that we were back, but we called in the guards that had ignored their work. When Angelina told them that their services were no longer required, or desired they just laughed at her. One guard actually said that she should have tried to dismiss them one at a time, but together they could easily run the house. He ‘suggested’ that maybe she could ‘work’ some of the older clients of the house under their rule.

That was enough and then some for me, and Alice as well. We both started casting from behind the curtain in the room. Alice targeted the other guards with a sleep spell, but I hit loud-mouth with my ear-piercing scream. Angelina joined us as we stepped out and attacked the men. Most we just beat unconscious, but loud-mouth was beat to death.

When the men awoke they found themselves tied and facing two witches and one very angry owner of the house. I was very clear in explaining that Alice was also a witch, and indicating what a double evil-eye spell could do to the male parts of their anatomy. That was a lie, I know, but combined with the gory mess that had been their self-appointed leader it made them very agreeable and forth-coming with information. The previous owner had shared information with some of the guards about the local thieves’ guild but had not recorded it in any of the books. Apparently the house had paid the guild a fixed amount every month for the ‘right’ to run their business without guild interference.

We left the guards tied up and moved away to discuss our options. Without these men we would need to hire more guards. Also, we weren’t sure how extensive the guild influence was throughout the town. Did we have the strength to confront them? Probably not. The guards had provided us with the information that they knew so we did know how to contact someone from the guild.

Alice and I made the rounds in the house then, healing the ladies as we went through. The ladies were scared but glad to see that we now had two persons with the powers to heal them if the men weren’t controlled properly. Talking with the ladies we got the full details of who was hurting them and their speculation on why. They didn’t think actual thieves were being risked. The hurtful ‘clients’ had just been some street toughs that weren’t usual clients. Maybe the guild had granted them the price of a lady and told them to rough her up and refuse to pay? And maybe they had been told that the guards would look the other way? We explained that we would be guarding now and the guards that refused to do their jobs had been ‘dismissed’. Then we developed our plan.

We hired several new guards. The old, fake guards were kept tied and gagged. If they got too troublesome, they were smacked over the head again. We didn’t really want to have to dispose of that many bodies again so we didn’t kill them. We didn’t know if the new guards were working for us or the guild so I stayed hidden. Alice pretended to be a new girl but she didn’t take any clients. Then we waited and watched. We didn’t have to wait long. That night we heard the arranged cry from one of the girls. The guard was new and just ignored the call. Alice and I stepped out of hiding and asked why he wasn’t stopping the violence in the room. We didn’t actually give him any time to reply though as Alice clubbed him from one side and I gutted him with my faithful dagger. When we stepped in to the room, the client was clearly in terror of what we would do to him. I healed our girl and told her to leave, and then we took everything from the client and sent him naked in to the night. We told him to contact whoever had sent him to us and arrange a meeting. Since they were coming in to our house and trying to destroy our business, maybe they could come in to our house to discuss the business.

Perhaps it was wishful thinking, but I had hoped once would be enough. There was no contact the next day and another incident that night. This time the guard tried to stop it but the ‘client’ held a knife to the girl’s throat. Alice and I both cast sleep on him to be sure that it worked, then disarmed him and stripped everything from him. When the guard threw him into the street, also naked and severely bruised, he was also given instructions. The next night was quiet and regular business but the following had two attempts. In both cases, the girls were badly hurt but not killed. The men were likewise badly hurt, actually crippled by hamstringing them, and tossed into the street with the same instructions again.

The next day the expected visit finally arrived. I was fairly certain that the person visiting wasn’t a high ranking guild member, but the guards with him did defer to him. He faced Angelina but directed his questions to me. Why didn’t we contact them directly? And why did we feel it was necessary to hurt ‘clients’ to get guild attention? Didn’t I know that was bad for the business? I had had enough of the idiot, but then Alice walked in with a cautionary signal. She had been outside of the room to examine the group magically. Unsure of what we faced I still wasn’t going to just ignore the challenge. I told the man to take a message back to his bosses. If they wanted their tribute, it would have to be worth it. I wasn’t going to pay the guild extortion money. If they were actually protecting the business, that would be worth a reasonable price. But if they demanded gold for nothing, then they should return with all of their strength.

The group from the guild left and we had two nervous days before we received any answer. I was surprised when the messenger arrived. He appeared to be an elderly man and said simply that he had a guild message, holding a sealed scroll case to me. Fearing treachery, I asked him to open it. Once it was open I saw that it was a simple roll of vellum. I cast the orison to check for magic and was surprised by the power of the enchantments on the old man. The vellum was blank, and the man just smiled and said “Good. I’ll meet you in the city park at high sun in two days. I’ll be alone and sitting on the bench. Bring any that you want. If you decline, this house will be destroyed.” I nodded and tucked the scroll case in my pouch with a smile. “Waste not! I’ll be there.”

I arrived as scheduled. I came alone against the advice of Alice and Angelina. I argued that the guild could overpower any force that we could raise. We were trying to bargain in good faith. I felt that the threat of destroying the house was probably real. After all, they could set fire to the entire neighborhood, surrounding us with death. They had no actual investment so they would only lose revenue until the next business moved in. I also left Cervie with Alice. I felt that if there was danger I didn’t want to risk my familiar. Plus, that would also give them kind of a remote monitor of my status. If I was in danger I felt that Cervie would sense it and Alice would be able to tell.

The man was sitting, apparently alone as he had said. He smiled when he saw me and waved to several men around the area. As they nodded and left I realized that I had passed a test. I also realized that I had been correct. I saw at least twenty men dismissed and felt that there probably were more.

He did surprise me then by dismissing one of the spells on himself. I had assumed that his magic was protective, but it also included an illusion covering his appearance. He was not an old man, I guessed his age to be mid-twenties by his appearance. He introduced himself as Rialto and explained that while he was fairly high in the guild he was not actually a rogue, but a wizard. He had been curious when he heard about the change in management of the house and decided to investigate it personally. The guild didn’t really care who ran the house as long as they received their gold. How did we want to proceed? I explained that the previous owner had been cruel and had been stealing from the girls. We intended to run a fair and safe house, but needed to know that we would not have guards that wouldn’t protect the girls, and that we would not be attacked. It was worth a reasonable price, and I mentioned the price that the imprisoned guards had told me.

Rialto moved off of the bench and chuckled. He dismissed another illusion that had been hiding a small basket. He opened it showing some food and a bottle of wine. He spread the meal out and I realized he had planned a picnic. He poured the wine, taking a sip from both glasses and offering both for me to select from. I took both glasses and settled myself comfortably on the edge of the blanket, curious.

We actually had an excellent dinner and discussed lots of things. It took most of two hours to get back to the details of the house. I guess he wanted to get to know me better before he hit on specifics. He had chuckled because the price I mentioned was significantly higher than what had been previously paid. If I had been dealing with any of the other guild masters they probably would have just accepted, signed the contract and been done with it, but Rialto said he wanted a different arrangement, one that would be better for the house, the guild, and ‘us’. He noticed that I tensed when he said ‘us’ and he chuckled again. He assured me that he wasn’t asking me to do anything against my morale values, but had I ever considered doing any free-lance type work for the guild? The food was gone and the bottle was dry so Rialto gathered up the picnic and suggested that we move to a more comfortable location to continue our discussion. He assured me again that I would be free to leave whenever I wanted. I agreed and he led me to a nice small house in a more well-to-do part of the city. I learned later that it was actually his house for when he stayed away from the guild, but for that night it was just a nice place to talk some more, and enjoy some more wine, and eventually enjoy the night with a very nice, very unassuming, and surprisingly enough, a very inexperienced but undemanding man.

Next