Chapter 3: The Seven Hells Hath No Fury...

There are certain things I always do once I have a bit of money in my pocket. No, probably not what you’re thinking, although that probably was on my list if I was going to be honest about the situation. But, the first thing I had to do was something you’d never expect a Rogue to do with ill-gotten coins in his pocket.

That was give it away. It’s not something I do all the time, but whenever I have a LOT of money, the first thing I do is to drop some of it off at the Itinerant’s House for Orphaned and Abandoned children.” I had a personal connection to it, having spent a couple years living there before Thalid purchased me. He claims that he asked them which of their kids was a hell-raiser, and likely too clever for his own good, and then they basically threw me at him, and didn’t bargain more than a token amount. Sometimes I wonder if he was telling the truth ... even before I got my education from my “father”, I was a handful and a half.

As an aside, Thalid never had me call him father. He had plenty of affection for me, but it was more like the affection of a person training his eventual replacement, if that makes any sense. He wouldn’t stop working with me on a particular Roguish skill until I had surpassed him in it, and then just move on to the next skill after a grudging “Not bad.” I’ll say this, it was a real-world education. And it wasn’t just the low skills, either. He once told me that “Flirting and attention paid to the right woman has opened far more doors to me in my career then any set of burglar’s tools I’ve carried.” And for practice, he brought me as a teenager to the Red Veils, one of the more ... intimate houses of ill repute of the city. I guess he wasn’t physically equipped to give me hands on training in THAT art, and would rather I get the learning from the most skilled practitioners of the art.

I still missed the bastard, mind you. Oh, he didn’t come to a bad end like most of us ne’er-do-wells tend to, but at some point, he figured that he had taught me everything I needed to know about surviving as a Rogue, and he just up and disappeared, only leaving a note that I was ready to be on my own, but to remember to hold to the code which he had taught me. That’s when I started my little Rulebook. And as the seasons passed, it was getting more and more full, but I think he would have rather have me not learn these lessons by trying to survive them.

So, I had left a fairly decent sized “donation” in the House’s secured lockbox ... I once tried to give the money directly to the House’s Matron, but, considering she was pretty well acquainted with myself and the methods that I had used to procure the money, proceeded to tell me off in a thirty minute lecture about the state of my soul and how she had wished they had been stricter with me when I was under their care. It was kind of impressive really, I don’t think she paused for breath more than once or twice during the whole time.

The next step was to drop another significant donation at the Temple of Mercy For the Forgotten, a temple that served the downtrodden, the vagrants, and the lost of the city. More than once, I had hid one of the Temples from the attention of the Guard, as just another Acolyte. I even had a rule in the rulebook for them. “If you have to hide at a Temple, do it at a church of the poor. They’re usually happy to accept help, and can’t usually be bribed to rat you out. Usually the worst that happens is that you get preached at for a few days.” I hadn’t quite figured WHY i did it, but I guess even a Rogue like myself can have a guilty conscience. Or it made me feel not so bad about stealing from others and wasting a bunch of it in spectacular ways. Same difference, really.

As I finished my donations spree, I walked down the Street of the Fourty Temples (so named, because, you guessed it, the street had 40 temples dedicated to the different Gods of the Eight Kingdoms.) It was one of the safest places in the city, because even I wasn’t crazy enough to steal from the Temples. The staff of the temple will have a problem with taking from them, of course. It was more their holy PATRONS I worried about. I had seen too much I couldn’t explain in the world to risk pissing off the Gods as well as everyone else I annoyed.

It was a pretty warm day, and most of the temples were taking the opportunity to do some cleanup of their properties, and I nodded to several of the Priests and Priestesses I knew. We never talked Religion, however. There was actually a rule that no philosophical or religious debate could be held on the Street of the Fourty Temples, because there was so many different interpertations of the holy scriptures, even amongst followers of the same God or Goddess, that there quickly would be denunciations of heresy, and then religous pogroms and then the streets would be filled with angry religious people, who despite their noble intentions, have more to do with a common mob then you would think.

The first year I trained with Thalid, only the combined efforts of the city’s Fire Brigade, and a Master-class Wizard who had fortuitously been on that street had kept a mislaid torch from burning down half the city. I still think that someone with the gift of Foresight had guided the Wizard there, he was actually quite lost, as he was visiting the Mage’s Guild, and that’s all the way across the city.

I stopped for a few minutes to flirt with Serenae, the Acolyte of Olenia, the goddess of Love and Pleasure. I had come to know her during a job in another district, where her and her fellow Acolytes were putting on a show to encourage folks to donate to the Temple. Well, I call it a show, but one of the City’s old fuddy duddies had reported to the Guard as “A Foul blasphemy of indulgence and unacceptable behavior that would lead to intercourse, dancing, and uncontrollable lust.” The Guard had to intervene, not to shut it down, but because the event was attracting a crowd 30 deep in some areas. I still want to know how she was able to move her hips in that manner...

Now, don’t get me wrong, probably the image you’re getting is a religous version of a brothel, and for a lot of folks, that’s what it was. But they taught that there was a time for physical emotion to be present in casual encounters, but that the holiest acts were wfhat you did with your heart’s partner, and not just in matters of lust. They had a saying carved into the Temple Bell they rang to celebrate matrimonial relationships. “Shared Pain is Lessened. Shared Joy Is Increased. Thus do we Refute the Darkness within us”.

So, having departed with a promise to attend the next Festival they were holding and a saucy wink from Serenae, I was feeling quite pleased with myself. I had done good for others, and it was time to spend the rest of my money in debauchery that would make even Serenae blush. First things first, was to hit the Guilded Ram, a nearby tavern that I had MANY fond memories of, and to drink to being alive and suddenly wealthy.

The Ram was just a bit further from the Temple, but it was still a good walk, and the sun had truly started setting when I had walked in, and grabbed a table by the back corner, more out of habit then anything. I decided that I was done traveling for the day, so I settled down for a serious bout of drinking and listening to the stories told by the various members of the Ram, most of dubious providence, but still made for great listening. I once heard a joke that no less than a quarter of the criminal activities in our fair city were planned at the Guilded Ram. And, yes, they actually called it the “GUILDED” Ram instead of the Gilded Ram, because it was a not-so-subtle reference that the Ram was under the protection of the Guilds of the city. ALL of them, including the less savory ones.

After a couple drinks, I spotted Kestrel, one of the enforcers for the Old Man, the leader of one of those unsavory guilds, and waved him over to make sure that I was fine with the current status of the leadership. Normally, they wouldn’t accept freelancers running on their turf, but as long as I kicked in a certain amount from my work, and didn’t do something that would blow back on them, they had a grudging acceptance of me. A couple people told me that the rumor was that the Old Man himself got a kick out of some of the jobs I had pulled.

After buying a couple more drinks for myself and for Kestrel (again, all part of the social lubricant that was required to function as a freelancer), my day took a particularly downward term. He was looking at the innkeeper about something, and got a nod. He then grinned and whispered. “Oh, did you hear? They have a new girl working here? Really good looking too.”

Well that piqued my interest about a new romantic target, which would normally be something that I’d consider a fitting end to the day. But however, I had been seeing one of the girls already, Tyanna, who had a most impressive bosom. I think a couple of jealous girls started the rumor that they were Wizard-enhanced, but I couldn’t understand why someone would do such a thing. Sure, I appreciate a good pair of breasts, but I tended to have more sympathy for the girls with tremendous boobs, as they always complained about the backache they caused ... a backache I was always willing to treat with a backrub and personal attention, mind you!

When I raised an inquiring eyebrow, He nodded, the look of a Shanxi cat looking over a particularly tasty bird crossing over his eyes. That was my first inclination that all was not well. He then said “Oh, I think you know her. Kila from the Owl’s Hoot? Weren’t you two an item?”

Oh, by all the Gods Above and Below, this was bad. You see, I had, as you can guess, a rule about romancing tavern wenches. NEVER, ever, EVER seduce more than one wench from a particular tavern ... because if there’s one thing they do, it’s talk and gossip. And should they find out, that you’ve ... ahem ... had both of them?. Rule #45 says it best for me. “They say say that behind each successful and powerful man is a strong woman. In my case, behind me is a long line of brokenhearted, vengeful women. And their wrath when together doesn’t add, it multiplies.”

There is still a tavern in the Docks district I dare not enter, because last time I was there, a comely wench, Talia held a knife to my throat because she thought I was her true one and only (despite the fact that I had never promised such a thing) and was not amused that I was seeing the tavernkeeper’s daughter at the same time. Luckily, the tavernkeeper convinced her not to use the knife right then and there and to let me go.

He then thoroughly kicked my ass for what I was doing with his daughter. Not that his daughter really minded, she was almost as much of a libertine as I was, but of course, daddy’s always want to believe it’s us men who are corrupting them, and not the opposite. I didn’t resist too much, I deserved it. I managed to stagger out, with their promise behind me that should I ever darken the tavern’s doorstep again, my head would be a trophy on the tavern’s walls. Talia promised that another part of my anatomy woluld be mounted on HER wall, and that she’d do it while I was still alive. I believed them both. And I was rather attached to both pieces of the anatomy in question in all senses of the word.

Putting Kila and Tyranna together was ... dangerous for me. Kila was ... well, intense, in all senses of the word. She had made it clear during my visit’s to the Hoot that if she caught me flirting or gods forbid, encouraging her fellow servers, that she would quench my ardor with a pitcher of ale, and hang the expense of it. Not to mention the ruination of a good set of clothing. And Tyranna? Well, she rarely spoke, but, she was ... demanding. More than once I had ended an intimate encounter with her waking me up in the middle of the night with her demanding an encore performance when the body was ... less than willing let’s say, and not giving me any rest until I had fufilled her needs.

Now would be a good time to make a quiet exit. If they were both working tonight, then the explosion might just be moments away. Or if I was lucky...

Wait. After the last few days I REALLY needed to stop saying that. Because if my luck was about to even out then...

I heard the sounds of angry conversation coming from the back room. The voices sounded familiar, and I just shook my head. Yup, they were both working. My compatriot said “Anyway, I think somebody else wants a quick word with you before you go...” and made a quick exit from the scene. I’d remember this. I probably wouldn’t do anything about it, but yeah, I’d remember this. He could have told me that FIRST and let me know that I was walking into a tar pit, but he waited until he made sure that I was well and truly caught before informing me, and left me there, like a well fed chicken who’s facing a week of Festival Day dinners...

Right, time to leave then. I thought and looked towards the door to the street, but there was a couple of the local toughs standing by it, watching me with a grin on their face. They didn’t like me too much (something about how I got to stay free from the Independent’s Guild ... while they had to pay dues and tithes to the Old Man (yes, the main criminal guild of Totar City was called the Independent’s Guild ... there’s some irony for you). They wouldn’t want to see me dead or maimed, mind you. But thoroughly embarassed, and the target of rage of two angry women? Oh, they’d get free drinks for weeks on the tale of what was about to happen to me.