What kind of prophet, or even just a boss, would I be if I couldn't handle someone forcing themselves into my business?
I thought about calling on the girls for help, but after some thought I decided against it.
If they were anything like Lightbane's girls, then things could go south quickly if I didn't keep constant watch over them.
This would be a solo venture.
And I could try to practice my role-play some more.
Honestly, how much trouble could it be? If I had my goo armor on, then basically nothing could hurt me.
I had to go to the girls' home first. In a trunk there, I kept the goo.
It was far too heavy for me to always carry around.
If I cast a strength spell first, then sure, but always? No way.
I was still exhausted from the last battle.
I wonder how Lightbane was feeling. He had to carry it all the way from Endil to Astar and back. That must have been really exhausting.
Maybe when I got older and stronger, things would be easier.
When I entered, there were instantly three shadows that confronted me, but seeing as it was only me, the girls relaxed.
Morgan even bowed, while Regan stood at attention. Medea, seeing as the other two showed me respect, mimicked both gestures, one after the other.
"Master," Regan said, "we didn't expect you so early."
Early, she said, even though the sun was starting to lower itself behind the horizon.
"I won't stay long," I said. "It seems a few… things have popped up that I need to take care of."
"Can we help?" Medea asked, closing the gap between us in the blink of an eye.
"No. I need to take care of this myself."
They deflated. They really seemed to want to do something - to have more action and adventure, with me especially.
"You know I wouldn't deny you if it weren't important. It is so important, in fact, that I can barely tell you about it. But it needs my immediate attention."
Their eyes were full of wonder. What could be so important that their master couldn't tell them about it and had to do it alone?
It must be a grave task.
I didn't linger. I took what I needed - the goo - and left the girls with their imaginations churning and their admiration nice and warm. A little mystery was healthy for them. Let them think their master was off preventing some calamity.
Stopping somewhere high up, I sat down, with my legs dangling off the rooftop, and took out the folded pieces of paper Gullyman had given to me.
On them was everything we knew at the moment.
I told Woodborn to give Ella and Mira some excuse why I wasn't there if this took longer than the night.
Maybe something about him telling Gullyman to show me the ways of business, or something boring and dull.
I scanned the page.
We had no name, but we knew they claimed a couple of buildings south of the market district. They were a small operation with hired thugs, gambling, low-level extortion, and now, smuggling. Nothing had made them notable until they killed my men.
The southern route was supposed to be boring. Reliable. Low risk. Mostly movement inside Astar territory - no foreign hands, no big rival 'families' or gangs, just us and a handful of minor groups scraping at leftovers. That was why the sudden attack was so troubling.
So, a small gang - small roots, so to speak - either got very bold, greedy, or cocky, or someone was backing them all of a sudden.
None of them are good.
I wished there was someone to help me, but I wanted to seem like a big deal.
With the papers came a map, and there were little dots on it to show our territory.
Storehouses, places of trade, safe places of exchange.
Would they willingly attack established players unless they thought they could win?
For a while, I did nothing but read and tried to make sense of it all.
Reading reports was boring, and I wished I had taken something to eat with me.
There was an irritation in me, not due to hunger or boredom, but because more than once now, people have been killed because of me or very closely related to me.
The people I killed in the woods, but that was kind of an accident - the first wave of assassins that Lightbane's girls killed, and now three people who worked under me for my modest-sized smuggling operation.
After an hour and five likely locations of three potential people responsible for this, I had a fairly confident grasp on all of this.
I stood, stretching. Now it was just a question of tracking them down.
After less than an hour, three of the locations turned out to be duds.
Not even "interesting duds." Just empty rooms, shuttered fronts, and the kind of stale-smelling flop houses where someone might have once planned crime but certainly wasn't doing it tonight. One building had a lone drunk inside, snoring loudly. I let him sleep in peace.
But the fourth place, near one of the dozens of cemeteries Astar had, finally had something.
It was a narrow warehouse. Cloaked in darkness, and it seemed that they sparingly cast Sol for light. It was perfect for eavesdropping. Before stepping closer, I murmured a Nyx spell, just to be sure.
The darkness thickened around me, pulling over my form like a second cloak.
I crept along windowsills and the roof.
Below, four women and two men lounged around a makeshift table, some playing cards.
Their weapons, mostly daggers, were set on another table, casual, as if they didn't expect the consequences of their little turf stunt to arrive tonight.
They talked and talked, but nothing that seemed to be of any interest to me.
Maybe I could scare it out of them?
I had a few ideas for my entrance. Maybe I could bust in from the room and glide down, like Batman would, but no. That wasn't me.
I entered through a window and got onto the rafters and then slipped as fast and quietly as I could into a dark corner of the warehouse.
There I geared up.
The goo armor responded immediately to my call, slithering over my body like tar. In seconds it turned me into a dark lord - seven feet tall, thick, plated, covered in shadow, and dramatic in the way all villains should be.
I mean, I couldn't let them see me as a kid; that wouldn't be very scary.
No.
I changed my mind. It could be very scary, seeing all the fiction where a child is the villain, but I wanted to sell them a kind of big scary guy, not a scary child.
I dispelled the Nyx spell. The darkness peeled off me like smoke as I walked forward, each step a heavy thud that I exaggerated.
One of them noticed first.
"Uh… guys?"
Then all six turned.
Then all six froze.
"You," I said, trying my hardest to make my voice deeper. "Have made a grave mistake."
Weapons were drawn instantly - knives, swords, one with a crossbow, and one of the men seemed to be a mage because he had a staff.
They attacked.
Blades clanged uselessly against the armor. The crossbow bolt snapped on impact like a toothpick. I didn't move. I didn't even flinch. I simply looked down at them.
They scrambled backward, collapsing over crates.
I stepped closer. Slowly. My steps thundering. Maybe I shouldn't destroy everything I walked on? Eh. I guess it's better to do this to scare them instead of killing someone.
The one with the crossbow shot another dart at me, and the mage cast a spell I haven't heard before.
"Skadi-Mora," he said, and a cold wave rushed over me.
It felt cold, but nothing debilitating except that I might slip on the ice that was forming on the ground.
I guess it was an ice spell. I'll have to remember the words and write them down somewhere later. Other than that, I ignored it.
The women all tried to punch and kick me after their weapons were useless or snapped.
All kinds of useless. Not good for them.
I backhanded them, but not too forceful, just enough that they knew that I was a real threat.
When they were all on the ground, I raised a hand and every one of them flattened against the wall out of pure instinct, as though I'd cast some grand spell instead of just making a dramatic gesture.
"You will not run," I declared. "You will not hide." I leaned in slightly. "You will kneel… or you will die."
This was, of course, an outrageous bluff. I had no intention of killing them. But they didn't need to know that. I mean, if I really, really had to, then I would, but I wouldn't prefer it.