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Percival Fredrickstein von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III had been stationed in Ank’harel for three years now, and never had he seen such an unusual request as the letter lying on top of his workbench that morning.
De Rolo, there are two individuals on their way from Emon right now, the parchment began, devoid of the usual greetings. I’ve hired them to reacquire an item for the Council. I’m sending them to you. Guide them to the appropriate locals and officials - they will provide you details when necessary. This matter is delicate, so I can trust your complete discretion.
It had been signed by Sir Gregory Fence, one of the most influential council members. Percy had had only met him once before. He only interacted with the diplomatic corp on matters of extreme importance, which meant that the people and item in question would have generally been far above Percy’s low posting . He carefully folded the parchment and tossed it into his forge fire, where it fell to ash almost instantly.
“So you’re Percival von Whatsit?” a voice said from behind him, shocking him so badly he nearly jumped into the fire.
“Yeessss,” Percy said, turning towards the door. A female half-elf had emerged from the shadows surrounding the far corner of his workshop. Her long dark hair had been tied back in a massive braid, and she wore worn traveling attire.
“But most people call me Percy,” he continued, straightening his glasses, “and you are-?”
“Vex’ahlia, darling, but you can call me Vex.”
“You are, I presume, one of the individuals sent from Emon?”
“Of course. I brought the letter myself, as means of introduction.”
“Would it be too much to inquire what you’re looking for?”
“Secrets, darling,” Vex said. “But I can give you a place. Are you familiar with the Luck’s Run casino?”
“I’m familiar,” Percy said slowly. “Is what you want in there?”
“Where else? I’m sure it’ll be no problem.” Vex stopped to really look him over. Percy self-consciously tried to brush some of the black powder off his clothes.
“You don’t mind us using you as a distraction, do you?” she finally asked, seemingly satisfied with whatever she saw.
Percy had already foreseen that this letter was going to bring a fair amount of risk, so he moved to the part she wished he’d ignore. “Us?”
“Ah, yes,” Vex said, thinking fast. “My partner and I. For security reasons, we prefer that you only meet one of us.”
“I see,” Percy said. They stared at each other in confused silence for a moment.
Percy looked around his workshop and back at Vex. Now that he stopped to really look, she didn’t seem to be much older than himself, even with the longer lifespan of someone with elven blood. He was rather young himself. “Well, is there anything that I can do for you right away? Lodgings, introductions, directions?”
“There is one thing.”
Percy waited.
“You wouldn’t, by any chance, be in the possession of any spare gold?” Vex said, her voice suddenly warm and charming. Percy’s brain noticed this shift and sounded the warning bells, but his mouth apparently was asleep on the watch again.
“Yes, I have a sum tucked away in case of emergencies,” said his mouth.
“Excellent,” Vex said. “I’ll need to borrow some.”
“Whatever for?” Percy said. “Didn’t Fence give you anything? What exactly are you going to do at the Luck’s Run?”
Vex grinned. “We get paid when results arrive. And we’re here to steal something, of course.”
“Something? Any chance you’ll tell me what that is?” Percy said, now getting annoyed.
Vex patted his cheek. “Safer this way. Gold please?”
With a large sigh, Percy reached underneath his bench to his hidden cupboard and pulled out a pouch with 1000 gold. Her grin as he handed over his escape fund was not reassuring.
When Vex returned to his workshop that afternoon, she was dressed from head to toe in the ostentatious manner of new money. Her dress was ridiculously ruffled, with too many necklaces and shawls and other fashion articles that served no purpose other than to showcase wealth.
She took a moment to twirl, stopping dramatically to ask, “So how do I look, darling? Insanely wealthy?”
Percy looked up from his project of the moment, hammer paused above a piece of bent metal (he had planned on refining the black powder formula today, but it thought that explosives and Vex’ahlia might be a deadly combination). “You look... “ he wiped a little sweat from his forehead, smearing black powder across it, trying to keep his eyes from her neckline. “Something like that.”
“I hope you don’t mind, darling.” she said, swishing her skirts. “I bought you a few things too, just to accentuate the air of pompous asshole you’ll need for this.”
“Noble is a state of mind,” Percy said, unintentionally becoming more pompous than usual.
Vex ignored him and shoved fabric-y items at him. “And we’re trying to act like we have money, but no sense, and therefore you’ll wear these.”
Percy dodged the items and instead reached for his rag, cleaning his hands thoroughly. Vex followed him until his hands were clean and threw it at him. He caught it, feeling its lightness and the lack of weave. Percy frowned at the shirt in his hand. “Is this silk?”
Vex was already behind the divider, “Yes, and you’ll wear it without complaint and not while you’re doing whatever it is you do down here, it cost a lot of money.”
It was also a deep, deep purple. “This isn’t really my color.”
“Blue, darling? Blue is always your color,” Vex said, emerging from behind the divider in her regular clothes. Percy held up the shirt in her direction.
Vex’s eyes went wide. “Ohhhhhh, sorry, that’s not for you.”
He held it out to her, confused, and then noticed that it didn’t have sleeves and was cut rather narrow to be a man’s shirt.
He’d met her only a few hours before, and she’d taken all the gold he’d had on him, and now had seemingly spend it on… undergarments. Percy was not very familiar with women’s undergarments, but he was sure that silk ones were excessively expensive.
He didn’t even notice her disappear behind the screen that divided the shop from his living area, mostly because he was too busy trying to decide if he should be offended or not.
“We need a good cover story,” Vex said, throwing bits of clothing across top of the screen, “I don’t know if I mentioned it earlier, but this plan will necessitate a bit of acting on your part. You can act, right?”
“If necessary,” Percy retorted. “But maybe you could elaborate on this grand plan of yours, seeing as I am playing an integral part?”
“Oh yes, right,” Vex said. “Well, my bro- my partner spent the day casing the casino, trying to find a good way into the room he needs. Apparently, they’ve got some sort of magic on the place that only the first floor is fully on this plane? The rest resides in extra-dimensional space.”
“Right,” Percy said skeptically. As far as he knew, that was NOT how extra dimensional spaces worked, but she already had his money, so he was in for the ride. “But let’s clarify. Where precisely do you need me?”
“Well…,” Vex said, re-emerging from the screen, dressed again in her ordinary traveling clothes. She meandered over to his workbench, a little more swing in her hips, and if Percy hadn’t known she was trying to take him for everything he had, he might have been interested.
“What exactly do you do with all this junk down here, anyway?” Vex asked, avoiding his question, taking in the piles of metal, barrels of black powder, and menacing looking forge tools.
“I’m a bit of a tinkerer,” Percy said, “a childhood hobby I never grew out of.”
“I see,” Vex said leaning over to inspect a piece of metalwork, “Have anything that might be useful?”
Percy laughed. “If you’re looking to blow it up,” he said, dusting off one of his notebooks. “I don’t have much for this type of work.”
Vex shrugged. “If things get nasty in there, it couldn’t hurt to have a back-up plan.”
“I highly doubt destroying the most popular casino in Ank’Harel would make me popular with my superiors in Emon.”
“Yes, but it’s vastly preferable to death by sandkeg. At least that’s what I’ve heard.”
“You’re still dodging the question,” Percy said, remembering why he’d gotten pulled into this in the first place. “You must have some reason that Sir Gregory Fence sent you to me in particular.”
Vex sighed. “You have a spotless reputation and a little bit of gold.”
“Yes?”
“The plan is, for it to seem like you fell madly in love with me and I’m fleecing you for all your money. As a young inexperienced member of the diplomatic corp a continent away from all he knows and loves, surely you get lonely, and the plan is to make it seem like you were a little too desperate for affection. To cement this status, I will be wearing something of yours, preferably something extremely expensive or something important to your family, so the society people will be distracted discussing the implications. To distract the guards, I will be big and showy and throwing gold around, and that will create windows of opportunity for my partner to make his way through the casino and to the item.”
She held up a piece of parchment, step-by-step instructions with his name written across the top.
Percy blinked and took it from her. “When, precisely, did you have the opportunity to come up with this plan?”
“It’s a fairly standard infiltration method for palaces, I just adapted it slightly to suit the situation here.”
“How exactly?”
“Normally, I seduce the gentleman in question, but we’re in a bit of time crunch, so I just went for cooperation.”
“Thank you for that,” Percy responded drily. “I’m not sure I would have been that interesting to seduce.”
“I don’t know about that,” Vex said, giving him a look-over. “You seem to be reasonably young and clean. I’ve slept with much worse.”
“Well, let’s make sure we don’t have to fall back to that.” Percy said, really not wanted to hear any more about the number of times she’d done this before or how many men or women or others she’d slept with in the name of Emon. He tapped his finger at the top of the list. “So, to begin, I need to give you something expensive or important?”
“A ring belonging to your mother or your grandmother is ideal,” Vex said. “But if you’re lacking such an item, a necklace will suffice.”
Percy nearly laughed. “I think you’ve been misinformed. I don’t have any family left, and any heirlooms were lost a long time ago.”
“Oh,” Vex said, “Sorry.” She stared at the table, but then her face came back, professional again. “For your family, that is. We still need something for the casino.”
“Here’s what you’ve missed in your brief time here in Ank’Harel,” Percy said, moving beyond talk of his family as quickly as possible, “The people in that casino aren’t really interested in the scandals of minor diplomats from other nations. They will, however, be interested in the appearance of a new big spender. You show up, throw your money around, and you’ll get plenty of attention.”
“Good then,” Vex said. “I shall require an alias.”
Percy waited for her to elaborate, but she just stared at him expectantly.
He blinked. “Are you asking me to give you an alias?” he finally managed.
She reached out and placed a hand on his arm, and leaned in. “Of course, darling, you know this town better than I or my bro- partner do. We need someone like you to create an identity suited for this place.” Her smile was warm and infectious. Percy realized right then and there that he was in way over his head. He pulled away from her slightly and reached for his sketchbook and his charcoal. What kind of alias would get them through the door into the VIP rooms of the Luck’s Run? And better yet, it should be the kind of alias that explained why she was slumming around with him, a minor diplomat. He scribbled something on one of the few clean pages and looked up to Vex, watching him confused.
“How do you feel about acquiring property in the city of Whitestone?” he asked, neatly ripping the page from the sketchbook.
Vex smiled. “Never heard of it, but it sounds lovely.”
Percival handed the page over. “Well, it’s now yours.”
Vex read the paper swiftly. “I’m a baroness! This is the best job we’ve ever pulled.”
“Wonderful,” Percy said, all of his worst fears confirmed.
Vex’ahlia, a newly appointed baroness from a backwater town, and her companion stepped into the main room of the Luck’s Run casino, and surveyed the room in the manner of royalty with money to burn before making their way towards one of the gaming tables.
“You didn’t strike me as the type to gamble,” Vex said, eying enviously the large pouch of gold that had emerged from his coat.
“I am a man who takes risks, albeit calculated ones,” He stopped, suddenly realizing how little he’d thought about whatever they were about to do here.
“And yet,” Vex said, echoing his thoughts.
Percy shook the doubts out of his head. “Gambling, you see, is just a simple matter of math. Those dice have six sides,” he pointed at the Avandra’s Favor table. “And if the goal is to get to 7 or 12, I can tell you exactly when you should double your bet and when you should let it go.”
Vex looked over his shoulder towards the lizards running along the table. “Can you do that with them as well?”
He turned to inspect them and then back at her. “If I watched them enough, yes. I could tell you with reasonable certainty which one would win.”
“How did someone with a brain like yours end up a minor diplomat all the way out here in Marquette?” Vex asked.
“Well, materials and tools and workshop space all cost, and the third son of a backwater kingdom doesn’t have much to live on.”
Vex looked pointedly at the large pouch in his hand.
A shadow fell over Percy’s face. “I… I needed to get away from there for a while.”
Vex’s eyes grew serious. “Yes, your family. You mentioned.” She put a hand on his arm again, but then turned suddenly back to surveying the casino floor. “So,” she said, quickly turning the conversation, “Where shall we begin? I really would like to be invited into the back rooms and not have to force our way inside, so I believe we shall spend a little money.” She surveyed the room again. “So what are you thinking, Percival? Dice or cards?”
“Dice,” Percy said, “Much better odds.”
“Good, and the rules are a lot simpler,” Vex said. “Let’s go lose some gold!”
A good hour and a half later, they’d spent a month’s wages on all kinds of games. They hadn’t lost all the time, spending enough to convince the management to have one of the guards trail them as they moved from the dice games to the Quan A Drensal bookkeeper.
It had taken Percy most of that time to loosen up enough to enjoy himself, although watching his wages disappear into the coin purses of the casino wasn’t helping much at all. Unfortunately for him, right after he’d grown accustomed enough to cheer on Vex’s chosen lizard, one of the floor representatives of the casino stepped behind them and said discretely to Vex, “If madam wishes, there is a special gaming area in the back of the casino, for select guests only.”
Vex turned, sending a very satisfied smirk to Percy before addressing the representative graciously. “Of course, of course. We would love to, wouldn’t we, Percival darling?”
The casino rep turned to him with a slight frown, and Percy was really over the condescension of third-rate butlers, so he held out his arm for Vex. “We would, lead on, good sir.”
He gave Percy a look of strong disapproval, and moved towards the back of the casino floor. He stopped outside a guarded door. He nodded to the guard, who opened the door and motioned for Percy and Vex to pass through.
The tiniest of crinkles was framing Vex’s eyes, which meant she was probably not as unperturbed about this situation as she appeared. Percy gave her hand a tiny squeeze and the two walked through the doorway.
The hallway wasn’t really a hallway, more a long tube of arcane energy swirling around them in colors of purple and blue and pink. Percy actually stopped to stare at it, the twirling patterns seeming to hypnotize him. Vex finally tugged on his arm and they continued down the hallway.
At the other end stood another door, this one far larger and more ornate, probably because it was made of magic. It too had a guard, well, doorman really, based on the lack of weapons and the podium. Vex threaded her hand through his arm again and they stepped before the doorman.
“Your name, sir?” he said, looking through the bottom of his glasses at the two of the.
“Percival Friedrickstein von Musel Kollowski de Rolo III, envoy, from the City of Emon in Tal’durei.”
The doorman peered down at his book and nodded, acknowledging his status, and turned to Vex. “And sir, your companion?”
Vex held out her hand and looked at Percy expectantly.
“Ah, yes,” Percy said, immediately regretting every decision he’d made in the last two days. “This is Baroness Vex’ahlia of the Third House of Whitestone, Grandmistress of the Grey Hunt.”
The doorman bowed deeply.
“Be pleased,” Vex said, in the manner of a Queen greeting a minor bureaucrat, channeling the etiquette lessons she’d had to take back in Syngorn with some reluctance. She had enjoyed learning how to put on the airs and graces of the nobility, but the other students were always cruel when you were a half-human bastard.
“Of course, of course,” the doorman said. “What kind of games are you looking for? We have all the standards, as well as some.. foreign games, from far off places, like your homeland, madam,” he said bowing again. Percy was starting to be offended that he hadn’t gotten a single bow.
Vex hummed and made a great show of thinking it over. “Cards,” she replied. “I’ve heard so much about the Gambit of Ord, I’d thought I’d try my hand.”
“With your beauty and grace, madam, I shall not be surprised to see you quickly master it,” the doorman said, opening the door. Percy made a gagging face behind his back, nearly sending Vex into a fit of the giggles.
“Right this way,” the doorman said, walking through the door.
Vex simpered and breezed through the door behind him. Percy fell in with her shadow, hoping his distaste for this place didn’t filter through to his face. The door closed behind them with a tiny precise click, and Percy’s danger sense began tingling.
The back rooms of the Luck’s Run casio were luxurious, in a more more elegant and understated manner than the gallery floors below. These were for select clients, the kind with connections and plenty of gold to fritter away at a gaming table.
The doorman steered them towards a large round table in a back corner. There were five gentlemen already seated there. The dwarf was dressed in the heavily bejeweled fashion of traveling dwarfish merchants. The human beside him seemed completely unnoteworthy, his brown hair sticking out from under his cap, which was pulled down low enough that Percy couldn’t quite make out his face from the shadows. The half-orc beside him, dressed in bright orange and yellow silk, might have been alright, except for the scars cutting across all his exposed flesh. The tiefling next to him was even more menacing, with dark eyes and red horns. Bringing up the table was an extremely drunk elf, whose clothes were so tattered and destroyed Percy was amazed they’d let him into here in the first place.
All five frowned when they saw the doorman leading the new player in their direction. Well, they frowned at Percy. Vex and her cleavage were welcome at the table, even when she was the one to sit down to play.
“Gambit of Ord, madam, as requested,” The doorman bowed and backed from the table.
“Excellent,” Vex said, and took off her outer wraps and furs and handed them back to Percy, who nearly dropped the lot of them straight on the floor. They were surprisingly heavy.
A server appeared from a shadowed hallway and pulled out a chair for Vex, who just barely saw the dark flick of her brother’s cloak disappearing down that hallway.
“Be pleased, friends,” Vex said. The table nodded at her stiffly.
“Minimum 200 gold ante,” the dealer said, finishing the shuffle with a crack.
“Yes, of course,” Vex said, her haggling smile fixed firmly in place. “Percy, darling.”
Percy leaned over and placed the gold in front of her, accidentally brushing her shoulder as he did, and accidentally sending warmth up his arm and straight through the rest of him. Unfortunately, he dropped one of her furs in her lap in the process. He reached for it, very aware that his pale face had turned the color of the sunset. The entire table, including the professional dealer and the servant who had appeared to help Vex, gave him a look of extreme pity.
Vex ignored him and focused on the game in front of her. She wasn’t nearly as good at math as Percy was, but she was good at money and talking other people out of it. Card games were just another way to make people give up their gold, he thought, his nervousness subsiding slightly.
“Deal me in,” she said, and pushed her money into the center of the table.
The other players focused back in on the cards, the way to either fortune or disaster.
Gambit of Ord was just as much about the people across the table as the cards in your hand at a given moment, but having good cards generally helped. The deck went from one to thirteen, higher numbers considered worse than the lower ones. (This game was so popular in Marquette that thirteen was considered an unlucky number, regularly skipped in naming streets or designating titles.)
Vex picked up her first card. A six. Good, she might be able to do something with this hand, Percy thought.
The play moved around the table, each of the players laying down their card or making an initial bet. Vex deliberated for a full second before deciding to bet. The dealer gave them all an additional card, and they all bet again. Vex had gotten a ten this time, but the elf and human decided to fold, so she called the bet, and waited for the dealer to hand her the final card, a two.
One last round of betting, and they all lay their cards on the table.
The dealer looked at the half-orc. “Ten,” he announced, looking fairly pleased with himself, the two, three and five spread neatly on the table before him.
“Well, I can’t beat that now, can I?” the dwarf said, shoving his cards towards the dealer.
Vex smiled and pushed her own cards in. “I can’t either, unfortunately.”
The half-orc scooped his winnings towards himself with glee, and the dealer shuffled again. They played three more hands, Vex losing or folding on all of them. She gave a little sigh as she pushed her cards in again, and while the dealer was busy shuffling, and the others were ordering drinks from a servant hovering near the wall, she slipped one hand into the folds of her massive skirt and slipped out her own deck of cards.
Percy took a moment to wonder if cheating at cards was really the way he wanted to die, and then decided that there wasn’t much worth sticking around for anyway.
With her own deck, and some impressive sleight-of-hand, Vex won the next four hands. Unfortunately, by the fifth, her card swapping technique was getting sloppy, which was immediately clear when the half-orc stood up, sending his chair flying backwards, and pointed at her. “THAT LADY’S CHEATING, SHE’S GOT HER OWN DECK,” the half-orc bellowed.
Vex smiled brightly at the table. “Well, gentlemen, it’s been lovely,” and she grabbed Percy’s arm and started pulling him towards the door.
“This was your actual plan, wasn’t it?” Percy asked, ducking as a bottle flew dangerously near his head.
“Yes,” Vex said, shoving a servant that was trying to grab them. “We needed a really big distraction, and my brother didn’t want me coming in without backup.”
“Your brother?”
“We can really talk about this later, for right now I really feel like we should run,” Vex said, hiking up her skirts and heading for a hallway. Percy ran after her.
The way to the stairs was suddenly blocked by two angry looking bouncers, so Vex darted down one of the servant hallways and through a few twists and turns until she found one that looked deserted. “Okay,” she said, breathing heavily. “I think we can stop here for a moment, work out a plan.”
“Great distraction, guys,” a voice said from the other side of Percy. He looked over to see the male version of Vex, but dressed in all black and carrying two wicked looking daggers.
“The whole place cleared out looking for you two,” the newcomer continued.
“Glad to hear it, brother,” Vex answered, “but it’s not going to last forever, so hurry it up, would you?”
Percy’s eyebrows raised at the brother, but looking at him, it was exceedingly obvious that they were related.
Vex’s brother shrugged and darted off, making sure to flip his sister off as he went.
“That dick,” Vex muttered, and went back to surveying the hallway. “So where do you think we should hide until my brother can get the thing and we can all get out of here?”
Percy’s brain hadn’t caught up enough to the current circumstance to use words, so he pointed at what seemed to be a servants’ hallway, and the two of them walked quickly down it.
They had only gotten about ten feet into it went they both froze, hearing footsteps down from where they came. Percy knew they couldn’t make it to the end and around the corner in time, so he looked for a place for the two of them to hide.
Two seconds later, the footsteps were getting louder and sounded really big, so Percy, having evaluated the situation, opened the first door he could see and pulled Vex inside.
“Whaaa--”
Percy put his hand over Vex’s mouth and cut off her protest. “Sorry, but this seems to be the safest place at the moment.”
Vex pulled his hand away. “No, shit, it’s a closet,” she whispered.
The room seemed to be for storing spare chairs. There wasn’t much room to stand, which meant Percy had to chose between a chair digging into his back or being uncomfortably close to a woman he’d already gotten too close to.
“Well, this is a good a time as any,” Vex said, and pushed up on her toes and kissed him.
Percy, caught off guard, nearly fell into the stack of chairs before he balanced himself and kissed her back. She had looked the slightest bit vulnerable there for a moment, like she’d done something wrong. Percy felt that sentiment should be righted immediately, and so he pulled her face to his, and kissed her again. A moment later, her hands had reached around his neck and were curled up in his hair. He had to brace himself between two of the stacks, but her mouth was just as good on his lips as it was at talking money out of him, and he could have stayed there forever.
The hallway outside was suddenly filled with lots of loud footsteps, and the word “Jeeeeeeeeeennnnnnnnngaaaaaaaa”, yelled at full volume.
Vex pushed away from Percy reluctantly. “Well, this has been fun, and we should definitely do it again sometime, but I do believe my brother’s gotten himself noticed.”
“Uh, I hate to get between siblings,” Percy said, already missing her mouth on his. “But aren’t we a lot safer in here than outside where people are chasing us with weapons?”
Vex reached into her skirt and pulled out an entire short bow and a quiver full of arrows. Percy blinked a few times, just to check his eyes.
“Oh no doubt,” Vex said, slinging the quiver over her shoulder. “But he’s my brother.”
Percy sighed. “Well, let’s go get beat up by a mob of casino-goers,” he said, opening up the door.
Five hallways, three close calls, and a brief shuffle with the silk-wearing half-orc later (Vex had smiled and tried to talk him out of killing them, while her brother snuck up behind and stabbed him with two lethal-looking daggers. Percy had sighed and knocked him unconscious with the butt of his pistol.) they made it out of the VIP section and onto the main floor of the casino. Vex rearranged her clothes and face to look as comfortable exiting as she had entering. Her brother, Vax, she'd called him, shrugged at Percy, bopped his sister's nose, and disappeared into the crowds. He was so stealthy it was almost as though Percy hadn't even seen him. One last stroll with Vex on his arm, a nod to the guards at the door, and they were out on the street again. Percy stopped and let out a huge sigh of relief.
"Come on, almost back," Vex said, tugging him towards home.
Percy, Vex, and Vax walked through the workshop door and all immediately collapsed onto whatever flat surfaces they could find.
"Did you get it?" Vex said to her brother.
"Yeah, yeah, I got it," Vax said, "We're good."
"Great," Vex said.
They sat in silence for a moment.
"That was INSANE," Percy finally said, as the day caught up with him. "We really could have died in there."
“The risk I took was calculated,” Vax said, sharpening his dagger, “but man, am I bad at math.”
Percy looked up at Vex, still ornate and glamorous in a dress that had wiped out his security fund, and thought maybe the risk he'd taken with her hadn't been that big after all.