Brewing Bad Ch. 57-58

Alright, as celebration for my home coming, another bonus chapter of Brewing Bad. And not just because I need one of Lucas's healing potions in the worst way.

Ch. 57 - Roughing It (part 2)

Lucas had been expecting Kar’gandin to send someone with supplies, so he wasn’t surprised when he saw the mule emerge from the treeline a little before noon on the appointed day. He was rather surprised that the dwarf had come himself, though. 

He was grateful for that, but even so, he was exhausted. He’d stayed up all night for the last two nights, and even with Adin watching Arissa during the day, he slept fitfully. He didn’t trust junkies even when they had noble birthrights, and between his worry about when Adin would rifle through his things searching for another fix, or when he would slip up and let their prisoner escape, any sleep he managed to get was fitful and fleeting, and he was bleary eyed by the time Kar’gandin reached them. 

“What’s up Mr. B, he said, careful not to use the dwarf’s name in front of the prisoner. Don’t you have more important things to do then come out here all alone?”

“Lots ta do, and more ta say,” the dwarf answered with a shake of his head. “I thought I best come meself so that one of the lads wouldn’t screw it up.”

Lucas nodded at that, and left Adin with their prisoner as the two of them moved off a ways. He noticed that the noble was instantly annoyed at that arrangement, but that was just the way it had to be. He wasn’t letting her hear anything he didn’t want to hear. 

 Kar’gandin quickly filled him in on the particulars. Apparently, the Parin household had in fact been raided by the city watch, though they didn’t find anything after all the hard work they’d done to hide everything incriminating. They’d been looking for Lucas of course, but Danaria had claimed that he hadn’t been there in a week and that he’d gone off in search of her brother, which wasn’t the farthest thing from the truth. 

“I thought they’d come back over and over again, but then, well, yer little surprise burned down half a block before they got it under control the night before last, and well - they ain’t come back since,” the dwarf said with a smile. 

“I mean, one day isn’t much of a pattern,” Lucas sighed. “Maybe in a week we can talk about coming back. Did they mention anything about little miss Torvin?”

Before the dwarf could even answer that question Lucas was following up with others. “What about the fire? What are they saying about that? And sir Tristin. Is he—”

“One thing at a time, laddie, one thing at a time,” the dwarf answered, shaking his head. “Your little prisoner hasn’t been mentioned a single time. By anyone I’m aware of, but one of the people that showed up with the guard was a mage according to your ladies manservant, and—”

“She’s not my lady, laddie,” Lucas said, making no efforts to hide his annoyance, but the dwarf only smiled and continued. 

“Regardless, I suspect that the mage was there to try to divine her presence for the powers that be. Since she wasn’t there, then they will look other places, but none of that’s the interesting part.” He paused, and sat down on a knee-high stretch of wall before pulling out his pipe and beginning to pack the bowl with pipeweed. “The fire like I told ye, was massive, but instead of pointing the finger at you, or even at the Knights like I thought they might, apparently they’ve decided to blame the whole thing on the escalating violence between our two favorite gangs.”

“Well isn’t that convenient,” Lucas said with a smile. Anything that hurt one of the other factions only helped them in a round about way. “It couldn’t have happened to a nicer bunch of guys.”

“True, true,” the dwarf nodded after he’d lit his pipe with a flame twig. “But even if we aren’t takin’ the heat on that one, the market district and all the surrounding areas are pretty much locked down at this point. The Kinght o’ Brass actually sent us another message asking us not to try to ship anything right now because the risks are too high.”

“Oh?” Lucas asked. “Are they pissed?”

“That I do not yet know,” Kar’gandin said, “But Hura’gh and I will be meetin’ with their leader at a pub outsidde the main gates a pace to discuss things. I imagin’ they’ll want to be reasonable. Especially when i explain how the Whisperers have been spyin on them, and pretty much everyone else in the city worth spyin on.”

“Well, don’t go giving too much away,” Lucas sighed. He wasn’t happy that high level conversations like this would be happening without him, but he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do about it. “Tell them about the Whisperers if you need to of course, but make sure you get something out of it.”

“Who do ye think yer talkin to,” the dwarf chuckled. “Ye don’t have to worry about me. I’ll haggle the pants right off ‘em if I have to. What about ye, Lucas? How goes yer interrogation of the woman? You must be bein real subtle, because I don’t see a bruise on her yet.”

“I’m not going to torture a woman for information,” Lucas sighed, not even sure he’d torture a guy in most situations. “It’s just not done.”

“We’ll don’t ye be forgettin’ that she already tried to kill you the once, and that if she gets away, its on all our heads,” he nodded, taking a puff from his pipe and blowing out smoke rings. “If ye like, tomorrow I could send Hura’gh up here. I doubt he has the same compunctions. He might—”

“Definitely no,” Lucas said, “But I appreciate the creativity. Just because I’m not willing to torture her doesn’t mean I’m going to let someone else do it, man.”

“Well laddie, you’ll figure it out,” the dwarf smiled. “Ye always do.”

The two of them chatted a while longer, about what other supplies he and Adin might need, timelines to starting production back up, and strategies about what they could do next. Lucas volunteered that they could fake his death, and come up with a new identity, but Kar’gandin put a stop to that idea quick. 

“Lucas Parin is a lot more valuable to the operation than Lucas Sharpe or Lucas Smith or any other damn Lucas you care to name,” the dwarf sighed. “Hell, the rumors likely to spread from all of this will just make ye seem even more shady and dangerous.”

Lucas just nodded. The dwarf had a point.

“Maybe if they start putting up wanted posters with yer name on ‘em we can look at that, but until then,” Kar’gandin said, finally standing. “I say we stand pat and stick to the plan. Until they give real charges ye aren’t more than a person of interest, and with a high-born hostage, well, who knows what we can accomplish.”

“Yeah, there is that,” Lucas agreed. “She’d probably be worth a hell of a ransom if we could ever figure out how to spend it.”

They chatted a little more, but by the end of the conversation they were already walking back to unload the mule. Once that was done, Kar’gandin said his goodbyes and left the three of them to fend for themselves once more. 

“What’s going on,” Adin asked after that. 

Lucas shot him annoyed look, but said, “Lots. I’ll tell you later.”

When Adin looked like he was about to express his annoyance in more words than Lucas wanted their charge to hear, he dug out a vial of midgrade blue from his belt and tossed it to the man. “Go on, Lucas said, take the edge off. We can catch up later.”

At this point Adin was down to a vial every three or four days, thanks to dosing with the dilute stuff that was destined for the streets, and not the high test product that Lucas reserved for selling to Lordanin’s finest.  

“Yeah, later…” Adin said, getting a far away look in his eyes, “Later we can… But shouldn’t you be sleeping? This can wait if you want to try to get another nap before it gets dark. We can—”

That he even managed to resist temptation enough for a pretext warmed Lucas’s heart, but he just shook his head. “Nah, man. Knock yourself out,” he insisted. “I’ll nap in a few hours while you make dinner.”

Adin smiled at that, and then made himself comfortable before he popped the cork and downed the blue potion in a single swallow. At this point it wasn’t enough to put him under completely, but as a goofy smile spread across his face and the warm tendrils of narcotic bliss snaked deep inside of him, he was basically dead to the world for the next hour or so. 

As soon as Arissa finished watch that display with disgust, she said, “So that’s how it is? You dose your own people to ensure their loyalty, but you expect me to believe that you’re only after money when it comes to selling it to the scions of important noble houses? That’s such bullshit coming from you.”

“You think that’s what’s going on here?” Lucas asked, as she realized the woman was exactly right, at least in Adin’s case. For that man, blue was a leash, and he was the one holding it. 

“Isn’t it?” She shot back.

“Not even close,” he lied. “Adin… he had an injury I guess you might say, and it just so happens that my product helps with the pain. We’re trying to ween him off.”

“There are other potions to deal with pain,” she shot back, “And he looks rich enough to afford real medicine from a reputable member of the guild instead of trash peddled by trash.”

“Woah, woah woah,” Lucas smiled. “Talk shit about me all you want, but leave the Blue out of this. Its pretty much perfect.”

“Is that what you’re going to do with me?” she asked as fear bloomed in her eyes for the first time, “You’re going to get me hooked to make me work for you too?”

In her eyes he could see a whole chain of fictions and intrigues playing out behind her eyes in some social Rube Goldberg chain of unlikely events, but rather than try to deny it, he just laughed. “That would be easier, probably,” he agreed, “My dwarven friend thought I should torture you for what you know and then kill you.”

Arisse paled at the casual threat, and swallowed hard before she asked, “and are you?” in a wavering voice.

“I’d like a better option,” Lucas nodded. “Got any?”

The conversation the followed was tense. She admitted that he had no reason to trust her, and that she had no reason to honor her word once given, which made everything that much more complicated. 

“I… I could betray the Back Alley Whisperers and tell you things that I shouldn’t,” she said eventually. “Things that would get me killed if they found out. Would that be enough leverage for you?”

“It would if they were true, but I have no way to verify that you aren’t just feeding me a line of bullshit to save your own skin,” he sighed, rubbing his tired eyes. “Shit would have been a lot easier if you would have just left us alone, to be honest.” 

“Well, if you expect the Whisperers to just let you move in our turf, then—” Arisse said, gesturing at him in frustration with her bound hands. 

“Bitch, were you dealing drugs? Or were you stealing secrets and using them to blackmail people for favors?” Lucas yelled back, “Because I’m pretty sure you were doing that second one, while we were doing the first. You guys are the ones that decided we were stepping on your toes. You weren’t even invited to the damn meeting you crashed, and look where it got you! Right at the end of a hangman’s noose!”

Lucas wasn’t sure what to expect in response to that, but sudden sobs were officially not one of them. Part of him was tempted to berate her further for crocodile tears, but somehow he didn’t think they were. She might be part of some secret society and have access to murderous magical items, but deep down she was still just a young woman, and it was only now that she realized she was untouchable, and that her daddy’s name might not be enough to save her from the horrible fate she’d found herself in.

Ch. 58 - Roughing it (part 3)

After that, Lucas let her be, and though Arisse had mostly recovered her poise by the time Adin had returned to his senses, she was pretty quiet the rest of the night. Not that he blamed her, of course. Lucas finally crashed out an hour or two before dinner and woke to the smell of only slightly burned stew. 

Honestly, it wasn’t so bad, and though both the nobles he was doomed to spend the rest of his life in a forest with were whining about it. It was warm, it was savory, and it was filling. There wasn’t much they needed beyond that. They even had some wine, though he didn’t dare drink it because he knew he’d never stay awake the whole night if he did. 

Instead of the meal, they just argued about what was the most superior dish and what it should be paired with. Lucas didn’t really have an opinion, of course. He hadn’t eaten half of the meals they were describing and couldn’t even tell you what the difference between an herb-glazed flounder and a horse radish-encrusted halibut was. That didn’t stop them from comparing which year of what kind of wine was best drunk with what meal in an effort to distract themselves from the meal they were eating. In fact, the only thing they could agree on was that this dish was beneath them. 

“But you made it, Adin,” Lucas insisted. “How can it be beneath you when it was literally the best meal you were capable of making. Doesn’t that mean it's the meal that you deserve?”

“That doesn’t enter into the equation,” he insisted. 

“It doesn’t,” Arisse agreed. 

“Even if I had the full kitchens of Parin Manor at my disposal, it is unlikely that I could make something that was good enough for me,” Adin admitted. “This is because a cook is inherently beneath a lord, so I would ill-suited to their work, in perpetuity.”

Lucas’s first answer was to make a joke about how he was a cook and he was way above Adin at all this shit, but he quickly realized that would give away too much information to their prisoner. So, instead, he said, “Isn’t that backward? If a Lord is superior to a commoner, then shouldn’t they be able to do everything a commoner can do, only better?”

“They must do things very differently where you come from cousin,” Adin smirked, “Because that’s not the case at all. Some men are simply born to do, and some are born to lead. Its the natural order.”

“I hate to say that I agree with him,” Arisse said, “But the arrogant criminal has a point.”

Lucas opened his mouth to respond, but that’s when the conversation was interrupted, though, when they heard a horrible screech echoing out from the woods. It was impossible to say whether the thing had been close or loud, but Lucas and Adin turned to each other immediately. 

“What in the name of the Gods was that?” Adin asked. 

“How the fuck should I know,” Lucas yelled back. “Trouble, for sure, but hopefully not our trouble.”

The idle conversation was ceased, and weapons were drawn as the three of them looked out into the night. Lucas drew his dagger in his right hand but kept his left free in case he needed to draw her wand as well. He didn’t know how to use it, but he knew the words she’d yelled in his ear, so he was sure that he could figure it out. 

It was just about now he wished they’d done more to set up defenses for their little camp. They’d picked a good location, with strong stone walls on two sides, and their campfire might serve to protect a third side, which could leave them just one direction to defend. He’d feel better with some sharpened wooden stakes or a palisade, though. 

Anything would be better than the darkness just beyond the firelight, where anything might be lurking. They had plenty of firewood, though, so they got their fire going to generate more light. In the time it took to do that, they heard that strange roaring or screeching, or whatever it was, twice more. 

That’s when they heard the sound of movement. Something was getting closer. 

“You can’t just leave me like this,” Arisse hissed. “Untie me, or I swear when this thing eats me, I’ll lay a death curse on your soul that will never end. You piss blood and vomit…”

Lucas ignored her, but she never got the chance to finish. As whatever it was stomped closer to them, she shrank into silence and huddled into the corner of the stone, becoming as small as she could. 

That’s when they heard something climbing the wall behind her. Everyone froze then, looking at the terrible sound of claws digging into stone as whatever it was that decided it was hungry enough to go looking for a fight moved toward them. 

In the firelight, Lucas thought that it was a giant bird at first. When he saw it’s beak come over the wall and heard it scratch again, he didn’t change his opinion, but as more came into view, he finally figured it out. 

A fucking owl bear, his mind screamed as he tried to figure out what the right answer was here. 

The spiders had been terrifying, and the goblins might look like demented trick or treaters, but neither of those things had anything on the raw killing power of a grizzly bear mixed with a person sized owl. When he’d fought the spider, he’d wished that he’d had a sword, but even a long sword wouldn’t be enough to fight this thing. He’d need a battleaxe or a polearm. 

Or a fucking mage, he thought to himself as he reached for the wand. As the thing reached the top of its eight-foot stone perch, all Lucas wanted to do was run. He couldn’t, though, especially not after the thing leaped down directly in front and batted him aside like he was nothing. 

Lucas went tumbling for several feet before he rose up to his knees. By the time he could see what was happening again, the thing was looming over Adin and Arisse, and screaching out a bloodthirsty cry. He could bearly see the two of them in the shadow of the giant predator, but he was surprised to see that Adin had sprung to the defense of the tied up woman. 

There was nothing the man could do to stop the terrifying creature, but the honorable gesture was still touching somehow. Lucas grinned and spat blood as he thought. I would have expected him to run and piss himself. He was glad to be surprised, though. 

Lucas pulled out the wand he’d taken from his prisoner and, pointing it at the thing's head, yelled, “Yondervis!”

Nothing happened. “Vonderfizz! Ronderitz!” he yelled, but again, the wand barely flickered. 

“Tsvondris,” Arisse yelled, even as the thing turned back toward whoever was yelling behind it. It might have no idea what magic or a wand was, and even as Lucas opened his mouth to repeat the line, the thing was on him. 

“Tsvond— Ahhh!” Lucas yelled as the thing grabbed him in its left paw, raising him up into the air even as its claws sank into his flesh. 

This thing moved faster than something this size had any right to, he thought as he saw the monster’s beak opening wide like it was about to bit his head off. It had all the strength of a bear and all the speed of a bird of prey, which meant that they were pretty well fucked. 

Oh shit, it really is about to eat me, he realized in that final moment. That was also when he realized he was still screaming. 

Lucas needed to use the wand, but the way that the thing's claws were digging into him, but as long as this thing was twisting knives into his flesh, he could hardly be expected to talk. 

Lucas hoped that magical items meant they were magically strong as he shoved the wand in the thing's mouth like some kind of cartoon maneuver. That caused the thing to pause just long enough to try to discover what had happened and figure out why it couldn’t close its mouth. 

That tiny delay gave him the chance to embed the dagger still clutched in his right hand into the owlbear’s large, saucer-shaped left eye. It dropped him immediately, though the dagger and the wand stayed eight feet in the air as he fell on his ass. 

For a single moment, Lucas had time to curse his luck, then he watched as the monster finally bit down and for a few seconds, night became day. Lucas had no idea how magic work, and even less of an idea about how magic items worked.

However, he had seen copper thieves try to steal cabling from a high-voltage system while it was still energized back when he was tweaking, and this looked just about like that. Whatever it was that powered that tiny wooden sliver erupted out of it in a single burst that erased the owlbear’s head. Weapons might have been all but useless against the creature’s hide, but as tough as its skull was, it wasn’t thick enough to withstand a grenade. 

Fire shot up and out in an explosion so powerful he had no doubt it could be seen from the city. Even lying on the ground, he felt the heat wash over him painfully. Moments later, it was dark again, and Lucas had just enough to worry about whether the decapitated corpse of the owlbear was going to fall on him and crush him to death beneath several hundred pounds of stinking carcass when the thing fell slightly to his right, narrowly missing him. 

He heard Adin and Arisse yelling different things, but he couldn’t really make out either one of them. Instead, he tried to rise to his feet, only to realize that he was too weak to do so. That’s when he looked down and saw how badly he was bleeding. 

Adin rushed over to him after that, and Lucas said, “I’m going to be fine,” but he wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince Adin or himself. 

Adin said something, but Lucas ignored him. “Bring me my fucking bag,” he demanded in a voice just above a whisper before coughing up blood. 

Punctured lung, huh? Makes sense, he thought as Adin darted off to do as he was told. I wonder how well healing potions do at replacing major surgery.  

Lucas could already feel himself fading. The world was going gray around the edges. So, when Adin shoved the bag into his hands, and Lucas started tossing aside every potion he pulled out that wasn’t a healing potion. It was like a grab bag of death, and every time he chose poorly, he was two heart beats closer to going to sleep and never waking up again. 

When he finally found a position of lesser healing, he opened it with slick hands, and when he downed it, some small measure of sense returned to the world. He kept searching through his satchel for more potions of healing. He was pretty sure he’d brought three or four with him. Certainly, he had more than one. 

“Adin,” he rasped. “I need two things.”

“What?!” the noble asked. He was obviously on the verge of panicking. 

“When I get done drinking every last healing potion we have, I need you to use any cloth that we have to bandage me. Clothing, bedrolls, whatever... I… you have to stop the bleeding, or I'm done for, you got it?! Bandages and pressure, even if I pass out.”

“What else?” Adin asked.

“No matter what you do, do not untie that bitch…” Lucas said before he tried to cough up a lung. “You cannot fucking trust her, okay?”

As soon as he was done, he popped a second healing potion and was disappointed that it didn't seem to help nearly as much as the first one had. Was this enough? He wondered. Was it ever going to be enough, or was he just a lost fucking cause now?