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The first coin: Copper
She could have missed the hidden message in the papers, if she had been looking for less, but it was there clear as day in slightly raised imprints of certain letters; different ink, still dark, but a rich shade of maroon.
M ajor A rson M ounted in the M ansion O f N oble I llance S cion, K illing I n excess of N ineteen G uests
Mammon is King.
Tucked into the page beneath was a further message, just for her.
If you didn’t know what you were looking at, it was possible that the coin may have fallen into your purse without a second thought. A similar weight, same rounding to the edges, but if you held it in your hand you’d notice a heat to the metal that stood separate to the coolness of its kin. Then the writing, the heavy text of the hells themselves.
Catch yourself staring for too long, and you would fall under its spell.
Not that they were strictly enchanted. Korrilla knew this, though it was something she believed to be true when she was young. A coin from the devil’s purse could curse you, the gossipy old servants told her, but in her experience since leaving the choking grasp of her master there was little that wasn’t improved by the weight of gold on you. This, however… this might have been the exception. The inscription of the Serpent wound its way across the edging, invisible to the naked eye but revealed with an additional layer of scrutiny and spellmanship, and Korrilla knew exactly what it meant.
When she had first come into the service of Raphael she thought herself the luckiest of all women. Freedom was a myth, she knew that, but power and influence? Those were as tangible as the ink on her contract to her Master.
As tangible as the coin in her hand.
She turned it around, detecting any magic on it. Sure enough, with a rub of the devil’s pointed nose a message reverberated in her ear.
“You’ve been following me. Tut tut. Come and find me then, old friend.”
The sound of her voice makes her shiver.
She was many years into Raphael’s service when she first heard of Helsik and her works. She knew other agents were numerous, of course they were, but another dwarf at the hand of a devil was competition, and they both knew it.
Not that Korrilla envied her position. Raphael had his flaws, his… limitations , but he was a gregarious sort. The tables of the House of Hope were well stocked with vittals, the library full of treasures. Mammon the miser offered little comfort in his realm. Any joy had to be found through more taciturn methods, though to be fair to her, Helsik always seemed to know how to make things happen.
Korrilla turned the coin over in her hand again, thinking of the last time she had seen Helsik. Eyes meeting over a crowded room, under the scrutiny of another, who was it? She couldn’t quite recall at first, and then it hit her as the coin revealed the secret of the soul was is bound to it, the weight of metal, the smell of dry vaults, the heavy clink of a trap sparking as a poor thief tried her luck in the wrong place.
Yes, of course.
The second coin: Silver
It felt a little on the nose truly, to send her to the counting house. When she gave her name to a quivering young human at the desk, she almost considered that she must have been incorrect, that it couldn’t be this simple, but he checked his ledger and found the vault with ease.
“Mistress Hearthflame. Here you are. But ah, you must forgive me. I cannot give you the key, not yet.”
She rolled her eyes. “Come now, sir. You have my name. Give me the key. I’m a busy woman.”
“I must fetch my supervisor. Forgive me.”
A whole hour passed by the time Glitterbeard made his appearance, his brow beaded with sweat from stress as per usual.
“Hearthflame, is that right?”
“Your customer service leaves much to be desired.”
“I was told in my instruction to make sure you waited a clean hour.”
“And were you instructed to tell me so?”
“Didn’t say either way.”
She held her tongue as she followed him down into the most secure recesses. She had little reason to come here past dipping into the worldly possessions of Raphael’s conquests in the city, and most of those had little to leave behind.
When they arrived, Glitterbeard started on the lock with a heavy sigh.
“Is that it?” she asked. “No speech? No fanfare?”
“Nope. Think your benefactor just wanted to see if you’d bother to stay.”
He opened the door and let her appraise its scant treasures. A tattered robe, one that she could recognise just by the smell of it. The old cloak of her old master, the one she had torn from him with his skin, neatly folded with a simple silver coin settled in the centre. She closed her eyes to sense for any lingering presence, but there was nothing more than the hum from the metal, and when she picked up the coin she sensed the soul immediately. A victim of Zariel here in Baldur’s gate, a trade off in the lower city for a price that they did not know they were bound to pay.
There was no magical message hidden in this poor child’s screams, so she picked up the cloak instead, releasing a scrap of parchment that fluttered down to her feet.
There, in beautiful copperplate was her next instruction:
We were never afraid to get down and dirty.
The third coin: Gold
The undercity sewers might not have had the same primitive stench of the privies in her old master’s halls, but the acrid air was still something rotten. It was as if this place had been frozen in time, not abandoned but left, as if preserved somehow for some great purpose yet to come.
This coin would not be so easy to find, that was certain. Helsik wanted to remind her something quite different, of early days of scurrying around like rats as they tried to find their favour with their masters. Of seeing each other, knowing each other, acknowledging ambition and trying to not be seen.
She gathered her robes and knelt in the water, looking for anything shining. She was never afraid of getting dirty, even if she might be being watched herself. She waved her hand, and as expected, the gentle shimmer of a familiar coin made itself known. As she plucked it from the shallows the soul told her of its last fall down here, looking for a lost love who had forsaken them.
As she listened the path made itself known to her, through the winding open waterways, up to a shining hatch in the ceiling, a ripple of light cast down a long, rickety ladder.
At the top, past a rusted grate, stood a grand old building. She looked around, certain that she must have traveled all the way to the upper city, but no; this house sat proudly at the edges of the public spaces, reaching up against the walls like a growing vine. The windows were heavily barred.
There was no option but to go in the front.
Magic made quick work of the lock, no enchantments past the heavy iron, and she pushed gently to avoid the creak of the wood. As she entered, treading carefully into the open hallway, she saw only a ruin, an abandoned house full of nothing but cobwebs.
”Took you long enough,” Helsik purred as she appeared by her side in a shimmer of light, a strong arm reaching across her to close the latch on the door. In the low light she glowed, the sheen of her Master’s boon catching the amber of the candles. “You’re getting slow in your old age, Korrilla. How long has it been?”
”What are you up to, Helsik?”
”So impolite! Lost all your decorum in the House of Half-Breeds, have you?”
”Raphael sends his regards, and asks you what you think you’re doing here.”
”Come now. I know your beloved master has little care enough for me and mine. Did you miss me so very much?”
Her lip was shining, the gold around her eyes reflecting in the lowlight. Helsik noticed that she was staring, of course, and pulled away with a chuckle as she moved to take her place behind the counter. With a flourish, she lit the sconces in a fresh, bright flame, almost blinding Korrilla in their brilliance as the light hit thousands upon thousands of gold coins piled high, the glamour of the abandoned house flickering away in the spark of gold on gold on gold.
“What is this place?” she asked, running her fingers across the wood to check for any remnant of the illusion.
“Just a shop, old friend. Do you see anything you like?”
She looked over the piles of gold, of rubies and sapphires, and back to the sheen on the lip of the smiling woman. “Nothing is just anything, friend. Not with you. Not with your trickeries.”
“Rich, from the great stalker. What’s little Mephistopheles Junior got you on today? Shar cultists? Desperate festhall patrons? Trying to get a noble to sell their soul? We’re running out of candidates for that one.”
It had been quite the time for change in the upper echelons of Baldurian society, but she knew better than to say anything here. She could feel it, tinged at the ends of stone. This was not solely some abandoned mansion. This whole place was a pocket plane, carved into the lower city as if it had always been here, tricking all that enter into thinking they are somewhere they are not.
“It’s time for action, Korrilla,” Helsik continued, leaning over the top and spreading her bejewelled fingers over the wood. “I know your master is feeling it. Zariel’s agents in Baldur’s Gate are done. Valampthur is gone, and she is back in the Blood War.”
She pulled herself over the desk and Korrilla found herself drawn into her strong arms. She smelled of ash and metal, rosewater and blood. “There’s a hole,” she told her, her hand reaching to the edge of her robes, “and I mean to stick my thumb right in it. It’s time to up the stakes. Really make something. Are you ready?”
She could barely breathe as Helsik’s hand played at the edges of the jewel at the heart of her robes. That jewel that, as well she knew, was the heart of her bond to her Master.
“And what is your wager?” she asked her, her mouth dry as Helsik slipped down, her body pressing against her own.
“Oh, I don’t think I have to show my cards, Korrilla. Besides, are we not servants for our Lords?”
Her finger skimmed the facet of the gemstone, and Korrilla could feel the heat from the power of it spreading. “You didn’t bring me here to hide, Helsik.”
“No. I brought you here because I love to see you work for it.”
Helsik pulled gently at the clasp, and Korrilla stopped her with a gloved hand. Any alert, and Raphael would come. And then…
Helsik smiled again. “What do you want,” she whispered, the gold around her eyes sparkling, “What shall we set as the prize if we win this city?”
“If our Masters win, you mean?”
“Of course.”
“I want…”
She reached into her pocket for the coin, and found nothing. Nothing at all. She looked around again, and saw clearly what she couldn’t see before; everything here was artifice. The gold, the gems, they were all an illusion. Everything here was for show.
“I want nothing from you, Helsik. My Master sends his regards,” she said, and turned on her heels to leave.