Dantes was smoking a cigar made of blended tobacco and weed as he watched men throw their lives away for his profit on the drake fights when Jayk found him.
“The Elven Kings are waiting.”
Dantes knew that. He knew that Jayk knew he knew that.
“Alright,” He blew out a final puff of smoke before putting out the cigar. “I suppose I should meet them.”
Jayk nodded and they started to make their way upstairs. ...
2024-09-03 12:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post
Hey, I did an interview with Maddix for the CritRpg podcast. Had a lot of fun and managed to be coherent once or twice.
2024-09-01 13:04:50 +0000 UTC View PostDantes leaned on the railing of the private upper floor booth of his club, Viridian Vixen, and listened to the singing coming from below. It was a slow, sultry number, Alessa’s vocals were smooth, and he found his heart rising and falling along with the notes she hit. He sipped slowly from his wine glass as he watched her. She’d put on a bit of weight, but it suited her. Honestly it was strange that she was so thin for an orc to begin with...
2024-08-31 12:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostDantes walked around the workers, watching as the ground was cleared and they started to mark where the new building would go. With all of the fires, explosions, and deaths in midtown and the docks, he’d been able to buy up the site of the now destroyed Vivacious Vixen, as well as several of the other buildings next to it. Vera walked with him, holding onto his arm as they surveyed the site.
“I just think a glass ceiling and dirt flo...
2024-08-29 12:00:02 +0000 UTC View PostDantes walked through the threshold. There were a few dead men in his path as he walked into the building. He could hear what few men Mondego had left struggling against the guard outside as he moved deeper into the manor, but inside was quiet.
They made their way toward the basement where Jacopo had found Mondego’s offering and the magic mirror. Dantes remembered the layout from Jacopo’s exploration of the Manor what seemed like age...
2024-08-27 12:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostDantes walked through the main streets of midtown toward Mondego’s manor. He was lit by street lights casting their rays through a thick fog. The streets were busy as they always were at night in midtown. Some of those going about their shadowy business noticed Dantes, and cleared a path. Some watched without shame, excited to see what drama was stirring outside their homes and businesses. Most had no actual idea who he was, thinking h...
2024-08-24 12:00:02 +0000 UTC View PostDantes waited in an abandoned house less than ten blocks from Mondego’s Manor. His coat sat on a rusty nail protruding from the wall where it dripped water onto the ground. It was cold, but Dantes didn’t notice. He didn’t even shiver. His eyes were closed as he moved vermin of all kinds into place and started to push his plans into motion.
Jayk, Jayson, and Zak were on their way, but had to be careful weaving their way throug...
2024-08-22 12:00:02 +0000 UTC View PostDantes could feel the boat beginning to slowly sink as he looked around the cabin. He wouldn’t be strong enough to swim through the holes through which the water was pouring as a rat or a roach, at least not until the cabin was completely filled. That forced him to wait. He sloshed through the water toward where Mercedes had left her bottle of wine. Somehow, it had stayed on the table in spite of everything. He lifted it up and took a swig f...
2024-08-20 12:00:01 +0000 UTC View PostIt was almost time. He could feel it in his bones, and his branches. All of his moves had paid off, all of his plans had been carried out, and his contingencies were mapped. He’d stripped Mondego piece by piece, and now with him at his lowest, he’d finally end him. Admittedly, it wasn’t as low as Mondego had brought him, and that did bother him. There were some plans he’d had that involved getting him sent to the Pit, but whatever luck...
2024-08-17 12:00:02 +0000 UTC View PostMondego sat across from a roaring fire in the parlor of his mansion. It was midday, and the heat of the sun combined with that of the fire was sweltering, but he didn’t feel it.
“Another glass!” he said, causing his sweat drenched servants to jump.
One of them quickly moved to the table next to him and placed two ice cubes in the glass to his side.
Mondego smacked the glass with the side of his hand, sending it fl...
2024-08-15 12:00:02 +0000 UTC View PostThe room was well lit by torches burning with heatless white flame placed to maximize the spread of their light around the room. The carpet was rich and patterned with a moving mural that showed wars, trade, and myths all throughout it. The walls were covered in a black and gold diamond shaped pattern. The gold parts of it actually seemed to flow, like water, and he found himself watching that flow as he walked into the room.
At the far ...
2024-08-13 12:00:02 +0000 UTC View PostDantes arrived back in his garden with a pocket full of gold jingling satisfyingly in his pocket. He moved to a small patch of clover in the back corner, and waved his hands so the clover would clear, revealing a patch of dirt. He morphed his left hand into a shovel and dug up the dirt, revealing a small chest. He opened the chest, which was filled with gold, silver, and copper pieces all neatly separated by wooden slats. He carefully placed h...
2024-08-10 12:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostDantes flew across the docks and shifted into himself midair to land on his feet. He brushed some dust off of his dark green jacket, and stretched a bit. Flying so much was leaving his arms much more sore than he’d been expecting. Jacopo landed as a bat on his shoulder a few moments later before shifting back into a rat and climbing into the comfort of his jacket. Once he felt loose enough, Dantes stepped out of the alley and onto the street...
2024-08-08 12:00:02 +0000 UTC View PostThe next several days were spent shoring up all of the work Dantes had been doing to manipulate things within Mondego’s operations as well as outside of them. He stayed in touch with Jayson, Jayk, and Zak, monitored the sub bosses, and made sure that the gangs they’d antagonized were starting to move in the right direction. While doing all of that he also monitored the hundreds of mini-gardens he’d seeded throughout the city. Cutting his...
2024-08-06 12:00:02 +0000 UTC View PostDantes left uptown feeling relatively good about his meeting overall. It made the problem of taking care of Mondego that much smaller, but he knew it wouldn’t be quite enough. If they’d fully sided with him, he’d have all the edge he needed, but that’s not what he’d managed to get from the meeting.
He shifted into a rat and made his way into Midtown with Jacopo. If that was all the work he could do with members within Mondego...
2024-08-03 12:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostNormally Uptown would be the dumbest possible place to hold a meet. You had to bribe guards to even get into it if you didn’t look like you belonged. Even once passed those guards you’d need to not draw the attention of other guards or of the nobles who might take offense to seeing you in their part of the city. The only reason to meet in Uptown if you were a midtown ganger was to avoid other midtown gangers, or...
2024-08-01 12:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostDantes pondered the way the sun shined through the tree branches while he waited for a response to his letter. His mind felt sluggish, likely due to how much he’d packed into his day. It may have been smarter to rest for a while before moving forward on so many different plans at once, but it wasn’t as if time was on his side.
The pigeon he’d sent with a message returned and hopped along the ground toward him with a note tied gentl...
2024-07-30 12:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostDantes and Jacopo climbed off the backs of their pigeon mounts and skittered onto the soft moss bedding that covered Dantes’s garden. They morphed into their usual forms and Dantes walked over to where he kept his food. He took a loaf of bread and broke off two generous hunks, giving one to each of the pigeons. They eagerly took them, and flew off before even saying thank you, not wanting to risk their prizes being stolen by other pigeons th...
2024-07-27 12:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostThey stood there in silence for a moment, sizing one another up. Dantes was covered in blood, and Godfrey was immaculate in a dark waistcoat with gold buttons that matched his face.
Godfrey moved for something in his coat, and Dantes drew his pistol and fired at him just as he threw a handful of coins into the air.
Dantes’s bullet hit the air, and Godfrey was suddenly standing across the room.
Dantes raised his wooden hand ...
2024-07-25 12:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostDantes mumbled along with the rest of the temple in prayer while he shifted his full focus to looking through Jacopo’s eyes. At this point there was no mental handshake between them, he blinked through his own eyes, and opened Jacopo’s. Jacopo was sitting at the end of a long hall looking around the corner at a door with what looked like a perfect single cold plate at the top of it. A woman wearing a gold half mask stood at the door. She w...
2024-07-23 12:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostDantes walked in with the rest of the crowd as they all shuffled in, blending into it naturally. There were a few temple guards at the door, but they were busier greeting people than they were looking out for any actual threats. The majority of people moved straight ahead into the main hall where worship took place, but Dantes saw a few people drift off to where the healers were to either beg for charity or pay them for some divine healing. Th...
2024-07-20 12:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostDantes stood over a bowl of heated water, shaving with a sharpened dagger as he shifted through the perspective of rats, roaches, pigeons, and bats across the city. Everything seemed to be much as it had been over the last few days, until he started searching Uptown for Danglars. He was usually on his way into his office, but Dantes saw no sign of him. There were a half-dozen guards outside of his small mansion, but when he peered into the win...
2024-07-18 12:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostDantes choked down whey infused milk as he walked along the border of midtown and the docks. It tasted vile, even after mixing in all of the things Orebus had suggested to improve the taste, but he needed it. He’d started climbing again, now adding running across rooftops and shifting forms in the midst of all of it. He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t realized, but any exercise he did in his animal forms had a physical cost on him as well. In ...
2024-07-16 12:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostThey walked back toward the gate into Rendhold at a leisurely pace, the Kobold guards they left behind still none the wiser to the fact that they were carrying away their employer. Wane didn’t even seem encumbered by the weight of the bound and gagged gnome in his pack.
“It was good working with you,” said Dantes as he opened the wax seal on his letter with Pillion’s dagger. He saw who it was from, and carefully tucked it b...
2024-07-13 12:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostDantes and Wane began walking through Buried Claw territory toward the back corner of it where, just like every other kobold enclave, there would be tiny shops set up by outsiders. It was possible that Pillion was doing his dealings underground, or through intermediaries, but unlikely. The Consortium’s actions weren’t technically legal, but the city turned a blind eye to them. Because of the extra goods the consortium brought in, the city ...
2024-07-11 12:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostDantes was finishing a letter when Wane entered his garden. He didn’t look up, but instead finished it, and began to fold it, placing it alongside the other letters he’d prepared. He had some for Danglars from his mother, a few for Pacha, one to simply be dropped into Mondego’s front lawn with a cryptic note about one of his lieutenants that meant nothing, but was meant to make him anxious, and the last one which he folded with additiona...
2024-07-09 12:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostJayk, Jayson, and Zak all sat together around a small table in the corner of the Drowned Rat. The bartender Biertan was lazily playing a Melancholy tune on a small lute while rain fell on the roof and trickled down to collect on the floor. It was about a centimeter high at this point, but if the rain lasted for too long it could easily rise to a foot or more. Water ran along the walls, dripped directly onto the floor next to them, a...
2024-07-06 12:00:03 +0000 UTC View PostDantes approached the young boy who stood guard outside of one of Mondego’s new warehouses. He was a mutt, with some clear dwarven and orcish ancestry given the near full beard and tusks despite his youthful features. When he saw him, he lifted a hand to his mouth as if to yell, but Dantes held a gold coin to his lips while shushing him. The boy’s eyes widened at the gold piece that glinted in the sunlight, and he nodded to him. Dantes fli...
2024-07-04 12:00:04 +0000 UTC View PostDantes walked down a wide street, possibly the widest he’d ever been down in his life. The buildings to either side of him seemed to rise up and touch the sky and the water running into the gutter seemed so broad and deep that he could mistake it for a river. There were shadows walking around him that seemed completely oblivious to his presence as they moved. Some of them jostled him unknowingly, and others nearly stepped on him as they move...
2024-07-02 12:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostThere were screams of disappointment from the crowd, but they were drowned out quickly by cheers as several of the watchers moved to collect their winnings, and others began to enter the pit to drag the injured contestants out. Dantes slipped through all of them, and leapt into the pit to approach Vampa.
Vampa leaned against the wall of the pit and drank from a waterskin that had been thrown down to him. He was covered in light scrapes a...
2024-06-29 12:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post