The brawlers and other members of Flame’s group stand in shock, staring at the body that now lies on the floor of the pub. Shaddar mops delicately at his mouth with a handkerchief.
“Over here men, please,” Shaddar commands, pointing at the corpse. “The fluids will be finished draining momentarily and you can deliver my completed message – sans about nine pounds – to the Guildmaster.”
One of the burly men turns away and becomes sick behind one of the tables in the pub. All of them are pale and motionless – frozen with fear. Pathetic.
Shaddar turns to his thrall and says, “To the victor go the spoils!”
Toothsnatcher grunts once and begins to loot the body, stripping it of the fine armor, weapons, and other goods. He considers yanking off the iron eye-patch, but decides it’s not worth the hassle of removing and leaves it.
Shaddar holds the men under his gaze with an aura of almost hypnotic horror while the minotaur is at his work. As Toothsnatcher unclasps Flame’s sword belt, Shaddar holds out a clawed hand.
“You will not need Flame’s sword, but it is quite distinctive and I think it will go with my robe quite nicely.”
The thrall obediently hands the ornate scabbard to Shaddar. He cleans the blade of blood and hands it over as well. Shaddar slides the weapon home and casually rests one clawed hand on the pommel.
“I certainly do not intend to sully myself with actually swinging such a crude weapon,” Shaddar thinks, “but it will be useful to me as a visible and recognizable trophy to my enemies.”
Shaddar speaks once his thrall is finished stripping the body of valuables. “You men will take this worthless meat as part of my message. The second half of my communication is this: Keep out of the Boss’ way.”
He pauses for a moment.
“Will you men be good enough to deliver my message in its entirety? I’ll know if you have not and the results of disobedience will be… unpleasant.”
Shaddar gets a babble of affirmative and docile replies at this statement and nods briskly.
“Who should we give the message to?”
Shaddar sighs heavily. How tiresome to deal with such incompetent underlings.
“Well, if you don’t know who the Guildmaster is and you don’t know who Flame’s lover was – just tell everyone you met – everyone you work with. In fact, make this your motto for the rest of the week: Keep out of the Boss’ way.”
“Yes, sir!”
“At once, sir!”
“Flame had a lover? Huh. Must’ve been one tough girl…”
“Yes! At once! Whatever you say, Boss!”
Shaddar strides from the room while talking to his thrall jovially, “A lovely way to spend our afternoon, eh, Toothsnatcher?”
“Yeah,” snorts the minotaur with a grim chuckle, “We should do it more often, master.”
Shaddar and Toothsnatcher waste no more time on their return journey to their new headquarters. The drifting thoughts of panic, blood, and mayhem are still in the minds of those humans that they pass nearby. Both in the slums and throughout the border zones as well.
“The Mist Demons have emerged from the border zone!”
“250 people lie dead by the Well of Fortune, I hear. Horrors!”
“Fell creatures, covered with gore, are stalking the city at will! Can no one save us?”
“Is there no place in the city that is safe from these new woes?”
“Best get this report back to the knights right away!”
“It’s time to move to a city that is not cursed! Perhaps Port City?”
This is all fine. Shaddar is content that the day’s actions will produce the reactions from the power centers in the city adequately. No further action is needed… today at least.
On their way back down to the underground lair, Shaddar detours to the stonemason’s section of the artisan area of the border zone. It is time he checked in on Masaxle and his cultural renaissance.
The workshop that the drow laborers direct him to is covered with draped works of art. Masaxle has been busy. Even the drow woman Shaddar sent with him to look after the artist’s physical needs looks tired.
“Oh, sir!” Evicurra says when she sees that it is he. “I’m so glad you are here! I’ve been doing my best, but Masaxle has been working so hard it seems he is intent on killing himself! I’ve had to hit him on the head twice, just to get him to sleep!”
“Lead me to him, my dear,” Shaddar replies.
She meekly obeys. Shaddar is taken to a back room littered with stone fragments, broken tools, and scraps of drawings. The sound of hammer on chisel echoes through the chamber in a machine-like staccato.
“Masaxle?” Evicurra calls out sweetly. “You have guests.”
“Quiet! Send them away! I have to work!” Masaxle grunts in response.
“Masaxle! It is I, the Avatar!” Shaddar booms.
The chisel and hammer hit the floor and the feverish dark elf rushes to his side.
“Forgive me, Avatar! I have had so many mundane interruptions!”
“Do not worry about that, Masaxle. I have come to inspect your progress,” Shaddar says kindly.
“Thank you! Yes! Yes, come and see! This is only my most recent work. I’ve had to requisition several additional workshops, their staff (drow only – you know), and a warehouse. Many of the lumpys were only too glad not to come into to work – something about nightmares roaming freely in the border zones! Bah!”
“Really?” Shaddar is impressed despite himself, even as he gestures with amusement at the stories being bandied about.
“Oh, yes! Not all of the work of my understudies is inspired, but it is of the correct style. Come! Let me show you!”
Shaddar allows himself to be lead on a tour of scores of replacement bas-relief inserts, statues, columns, fountains, and other works of art. The work is of varying degrees of quality, as Masaxle warned, but quantity has a quality all of its own. There is enough artwork here to pollute the current style of the city at once. Some pieces are purely drow in style, some are illithid, and many are a bizarre amalgamation of the two cultures that never should have happened.
Much of the artwork has been carved in the brown stone that Shaddar recognizes as the color used in the border zone. When he notes this fact Masaxle nods vigorously.
“Of course! The border zone has remained pristine! Untouched by the taint of human artwork! The border zone! A perfect place for the revival of drow art to rise up and be noticed by all!”
Shaddar touches a bas-relief of an illithid headed monster that sports eight legs with satisfaction. “You are right, Masaxle. I’m so glad that my inspiration has fallen on such a fertile mind.”
“My thanks,” Masaxle murmurs.
“And now, Masaxle,” Shaddar says expansively, “It is time for us to move to the next stage. I have obtained a much larger studio and medium for your talents. I require you to design and enliven an entire underground settlement! This artwork that you have completed must be put on display at once, but the real work of revitalizing your people’s culture must go on! Come with us and I will show you to your new home. We shall return with assistants later this evening and begin the work of decorating the border zones with your work.”
“Yes, my Avatar! Oh, a settlement? Underground! Lovely! Oh! I’ll require the services of sorcerers in order to create the light effects that will be absolutely necessary!”
“You shall have them,” Shaddar promises.
With this Shaddar turns on his heel, followed by Toothsnatcher and the two drow.
Once they arrive back at the underground palace, Shaddar dismisses Toothsnatcher to clean himself up and rest – or whatever it is that thralls like to do when they are not serving him. He sends Masaxle and Evicurra to explore the huge palace and find suitable locations for their new home. This settled, Shaddar seeks out those to whom he gave orders to discover their results.
Hawke is eager to speak with him. “Boss!” he exclaims, “I found out about Jorin and Bort. Sorry to trouble you about them – since you already had it under control. Why didn’t you tell me, Boss?“
“Tell you what?”
“That you already had a team going in to free them from prison? All the guards paralyzed and them the only ones that were freed. Ha! Well, done! That’ll leave them scratching their heads! It’s all over town – the rumors that Guild of Swashbuckling Rogues has freed them.”
“It wasn’t I,” Shaddar musses thoughtfully.
“It wasn’t?” Hawke says with surprise. “Who then?”
“Fascinating,” Shaddar breathes with silted eyes. His thoughts continue, “Oh-ho! Now the game is being played properly!”
“Who would want to free Jorin and Bort, Boss? Who would want to put it up that we did the job?”
“Those fools from the Mist of Darkness, perhaps? The Guildmaster of Villains – seeking out some information about our organization? It could be anyone. But whoever it is has my respect. Yes, my respect, Hawke! Too long have I been intellectually unchallenged in my plans! This indicates a subtlety in at least one of my foes that is quite refreshing.”
Hawke makes a shrugging kind of gesture that is accompanied with the thought of, “If you say so.” He raises a finger. “One other thing I found out, Boss – just minutes before you got back.”
“Yes?”
“There’s rumors that something bad has happened to the leadership of the Guild of Villains; that several of their most lucrative operations have been ruined. I’ve even heard rumbles that Flame himself has been injured and defeated in combat!”
“Really,” Shaddar says with humor, pulling his robe aside to display Flame’s longsword attached to his waist. “Do tell.”
Hawke stares at the weapon with his mouth hanging open. “Boss? Is he hurt badly?”
“Can’t get much worse,” Shaddar laughs, slapping the hilt of the sword with an open palm, “But I can say with certainty that he feels nothing at the moment!”
“But… The Guildmaster’s right hand, Boss?” Hawke swallows. “You’ve declared war now.”
“War has been upon them for quite some time, Hawke, whether they realized it or not.”
Hawke’s thoughts are a mixture of horror at the glee with which Shaddar speaks of violence and the mental salve of, “At least he’s not asking me to do his dirty work – handles things like this on his own, the Boss does. Got to respect him for that, if nothing else.”
Hawke shakes off the shock at this revelation and says, “Well. That’ll make things easier then, won’t it?”
“Undoubtedly...”
Hawke smiles tightly and reports on the doings of many of the other residents of the headquarters. Cutt and the drow are busily unpacking and assembling equipment. Loolipo has been working with some of the drow guards to establish new protocols for defense that might actually work.
As they walk through the palace with Hawke reporting on the activities of those who are rightfully hard at their labors, Shaddar notices the two slaves that returned from the trip outside of the city.
He points to the slaves. “Hawke, I need you to do something with these two wretches.”
“As you wish, Boss,” he says with a bit of discomfort. “I know one of them used to be Guild, but both of them seem like they are totally insane.”
“Indeed. It is this very attribute that I wish to make use of,” Shaddar says. “Blindfold them, take them into the border zones, and then let them go.”
“Let them go?”
“As my Doomsayers, they will spread rumors and messages both true and false to whomever they come into contact with. Perfection itself from a propaganda and misinformation perspective! Make sure that they get food dropped off to them during the night and that they are moved frequently in order to maintain the illusion that a horde of them are roaming across the city. This one,” Shaddar kicks the man who once was a rich nobleman of some kind, “is literate. Provide him with paint and brushes that he may scrawl his mad ramblings on the walls of the city. See to this at once.”
“Very well,” Hawke says. He motions some drow to assist him in moving the crazed slaves whose minds shattered during the horrors they experienced during their long journey to the sealed off illithid settlement at the bottom of the Well.
Kug struts up to Shaddar with a happy bellow and open arms. Hawke nods once to Shaddar and moves away to see to his tasks. Shaddar spreads his arms in a welcoming gesture.
“Ah! My General! I have a gift for you! A token of my esteem!”
“Yeah?”
Shaddar points to the discarded sack that contains the fine armor that was stripped from Flame’s dead body. “The armor of the Guild of Villain’s most powerful warrior! Now to be borne into combat by the General of the Swashbuckling Rogues!”
Kug hoots happily and begins to examine the fine plate mail. “It’ll take a bit of adjustment to fit me, master, but this is wonderful! Where’d you get it? Looks a bit bloody.”
Shaddar waves the question aside, “Where I acquired it doesn’t matter. Flame will not be needing armor any longer and you will – that is what is important.”
“Thank you, master!”
“Don’t mention it, General Kug,” Shaddar says grandly. “Now you came to speak with me about something?”
“Yeah! On the first day we meet we talked about the hobgoblin festival – the big party where obedient hobgoblins get to party and choose mates? The next one is coming up soon and I was wondering what you wanted me to do.”
Shaddar taps his claws together as he replies, “Yes. First, you will take your men and visit the largest halls of hobgoblins just as the festival begins. The hobgoblins who were deemed to violent and disrespectful will remain behind, correct?”
“Yep.”
“Just so. Rally these into a mob of surly and burly hobgoblins, then crash the festival party! Take all of the hobgoblin women – since we must begin at once to breed at better class of hobgoblin warrior and the weak fools who blindly follow the humans are not worthy. Give those who resist you a good thrashing and attempt to recruit all who you can to our glorious cause!”
“And if any fight back? What do I do with those who refuse to join us?” Kug asks eagerly.
“You know what to do…” Shaddar whispers evilly.
Kug laughs grimly and claps his hand together. “I’ll begin organizing this expedition at once, master! Trust that I will be very convincing!” His thoughts continue with much less bravado, “Kill all the hobgoblins that don’t come over? That’ll be awful if there’s a lot that won’t come – I guess I’ll be my most convincing ever…”
Shaddar is pleased. This mission will be an excellent test of his General’s true loyalty. And it is equally clear that Kug understands exactly what fate awaits him should he disobey. Standard illithid leadership methods: use both the carrot and the stick simultaneously…
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