Cards Reshuffled

Unlike what some people think, not all magical abilities are completely beneficial. In fact, some may cause their wielder more aggravation than they do him good. For example, I recall the sad case of the man who used a Wish spell to wish for the ability to turn everything he touched into gold. Unfortunately for him, the genie was hard of hearing and granted him the ability to turn everything into mold. I’m told that the smell eventually caused him to go quite insane, and he spent his final years fruitlessly trying to come up with a way to make ‘Cure disease’ potions out of the green stuff.

Excerpt from ‘Interview With An Assassin’

“So,” Poppy said. “I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that I had two kings in the last deal, and two demons, and then I used the Glabrezu and the King of hearts to build myself a Minor Rulership. And you’re wondering if I could possibly have got enough good cards in this deal to build myself something really good, like Triumvirate, or if I’m gonna have to fold. So I guess the question you really ought to ask yourself is: ‘Do I feel lucky?’” She grinned, eyes twinkling. “Well? Do ya…punk?”

“Punk?” her opponent said in a lazily insolent voice, raising an eyebrow. “Little one, I believe you forget yourself. It should really be ‘Superior Grand Master of ‘Monarchs and Monsters’.”

The halfling’s grin widened. “Oooh, playing rough, aren’t we? ‘Little one’…the only ‘little’ thing around here will be your ego once I get through with you. You’re gonna be begging me for instruction, just you wait.”

“Hardly,” Dekaras said, giving his friend a small smirk. He eyed the pile on the table carefully. “I rather think you’re going to be begging me for a chance to win back your losses, since I’m planning to make you utterly bankrupt.” The assassin put a hint of polite helpfulness into his voice. “Unless you’re ready to give up?”

“Ha! Hardly! I’m buying two more cards, and selling one. And I’ll raise you ten.”

“Very well. I will join you, and raise you twenty.”

“Right then. Time for the showdown, long-shanks.”

“Any time, little one.”

Both assassins spread their cards on the table, Poppy with a dramatic flourish, and her companion with considerably more restraint. Then there were a few seconds of silence.

“Now, correct me if I’m wrong,” Dekaras said, “but I’m pretty sure there shouldn’t be ten Archmages in the deck, nor should there be more than one High Trump.”

“Guess not, Dekkie,” Poppy said, smiling innocently. “I wonder where they all came from? Probably the same place as those three Backstab cards that seem to have mysteriously popped out of nowhere.”

“Ah…a sound theory.” The tall assassin gave his friend a humorous look across the table. “I admit I did wonder if you’d cheat as outrageously as you always did that summer when we played this all the time.”

“’Course I would, Dekkie! That’s the really fun part, seeing which one of us can come up with the wildest cheats. And you’re just as bad as me. I remember that time when you actually ate the Black Death so you wouldn’t have to play it.”

“What can I say?” Dekaras said with a shrug. “I like winning. Anyway, I’d say we’re about even, so let’s split the winnings.” He divided the heap on the table in two equal parts, pushed one half across to his friend and kept the other for himself. “Not that I suffer from an acute lack of toothpicks, but it’s the principle of the thing…”

The reason for the two assassins entertaining themselves in this fashion was that Kagain the dwarf still hadn’t returned to Beregost, and so Dekaras was stuck there until the mercenary got back to provide him with some clues to Edwin’s whereabouts. He had rented himself a room across the street from where Kagain ran the shop that worked as a front for his mercenary activities, and had resigned himself to a dull wait. “You know,” he said, not for the first time. “You don’t really have to do this. I’m sure your niece is expecting you, and it’s not as if I won’t be fine on my own.”

Poppy snorted loudly, brown pigtails bouncing. “Yeah right, Dekkie!” she said. “Fine like you were when I ran into you? Fine enough to carve your heart to bits with your mind?” She jumped off her chair and crossed the floor, then stopped next to him, leaning against his knee. “Nuh-uh. I’m staying right here, until I’ve made sure that you won’t slip back into brood mood.”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“Yes you would!” The halfling gave him a mildly exasperated look. “You need my company right now, and you know you want it. You’re just being as hopeless as always when it comes to admitting you’re not feeling well or that you can’t handle everything on your own. I’m your Best Friend, you know. It’s not as if I’m gonna get upset or despise you for it, I want to help you out.”

“I know that,” Dekaras said with a brief sigh. “And you know how much that means. It’s just…difficult.”

“I know, Dekkie,” Poppy said, and she looked unusually serious. “I know. And that’s exactly why I’m staying around until I’m sure you’ll be fine. I’m not about to let my Best Friend torture himself, you know.”

Dekaras was just about to reply to this when he found himself rather forcefully interrupted. There was a bright flash of light, and a wailing scream that seemed to be coming from far in the distance but to be rapidly approaching, as from out of a long tunnel. Then there was a loud THUMP and a stranger appeared out of nowhere, landing flat on his back in the middle of the floor. He was a skinny little man with a nervous twitch in his right cheek, and runny red eyes, and his clothes were all crumpled and badly fitting. When he noticed the two assassins watching him he gave a small scream and twitched even worse than before. For some reason his clothes were giving off thin wisps of smoke.

Viekang shuddered violently as the remnants of the magical storm passed through him, making him quite nauseous. He didn’t dare hope that this time he would have wound up someplace nice, with kind and understanding women who would fan him with great big feathers and feed him peeled grapes. No, scratch feeding, at least until his stomach settled down some more. He was on a floor, that was good. Once he’d teleported into the middle of the ocean, and another time he’d wound up a few miles up in the air, but approaching the ground very quickly. Even worse, that time he’d been too shocked to get scared until he could actually see the treetops rushing towards him. And then there’d been the time with the Red Dragon. And…no. Mustn’t think about that now. Floor was good. And it was staying in place, which was also good. And he was still alive, and in no immediate pain, which was even better. Perhaps this once, just this once, the soothing ladies would be there. Viekang carefully opened his eyes. Then he wished he hadn’t.

There was a halfling standing over him with a nasty-looking short sword firmly grasped in one plump hand. Her thick brown pigtails with their big red bows created a strangely jolly contrast to the wicked edge of the blade and the hard glint in her big brown eyes.

Viekang’s gaze traveled upwards, and he found out that the situation was even worse than he had first imagined. There was a tall and sinister-looking fellow dressed all in black standing next to the halfling, and pointing a crossbow at the unlucky man on the floor. The fellow’s sharp face was as emotionless as a mask, and he was giving Viekang a cool look along the length of a long and somewhat pointed nose. “You have one minute to explain your presence here,” he said. “I suggest you make the explanation a good one.” Then he smiled, a very unnerving gesture that carried with it the clear impression of fangs, and Viekang couldn’t quite hold back a scream. Perhaps this wasn’t so much better than…than what he had left behind after all. When the halfling tickled him in the ribs with her sword he felt certain that it wasn’t.

Dekaras had been expecting results, certainly. He normally got those. He hadn’t expected anything quite so dramatic though. The man on the floor screamed loudly, and then he started babbling in a terrified voice. “Please!” he cried out. “Please don’t hurt me, I didn’t mean to come here, it was all an accident, I’ll go away right now if you wish, I just got so scared and when I get scared I can’t help myself, and I’m scared now, very, very scared, oh, why won’t it recharge yet, I need TO GET AWAY!”

“Get away from what?” Poppy curiously asked.

“From…from them! They hunted me, they wanted to kill me or worse, but they didn’t know about my power, my curse…” The man got an insane look in his eyes, a curious mix of triumph and desperation. “When I get scared…I get away. But I can’t control it, I don’t know where I’ll go next, and sometimes it’s worse than where I started from…please don’t kill me!”

“And who are they, exactly?” Dekaras said, using the tone of voice he had perfected for using whenever Edwin had been up to some form of mischief. It was a voice that suggested that he didn’t believe a word the other person was saying, and was about to get very unpleasant about it unless they reinvented their story within the next few moments. “Liches? Demons? Twisted Rune, perhaps? Or maybe…the Red Wizards?” The fellow on the floor seemed genuinely scared, but it could all be some form of clever ruse, a trap of Thayvian origin. The Red Wizards would be after him as well as Edwin, or else they might try to get to the boy through him, and he certainly wasn’t about to allow that to happen.

“N-n-no!” Viekang stammered. “None of those, honestly! They were…were…” Suddenly his eyes fixed on something behind the two assassins, and bulged with horror. “AAAAAAHHHH!” he screamed. “THEY’VE FOUND ME! THEY’RE HERE!” There was another bright flash of light and a loud bang, and then he was gone, as if he had never been there.

The two assassins had naturally noticed the look, and they quickly spun around to see a shimmering silvery mist drifting into the room from under the door. It rose up and formed into a pillar, and then it coalesced, taking on solid form.

It looked more or less like a human man, young and handsome. But its skin was a lifeless, papery white, its nails grown into sharp claws, and there was a red and hungry fire in its eyes. It was wearing elegant court clothing, of Amnian fashion, but the rich red velvet suit clashed badly against the sharp teeth that were bared when the creature opened its mouth and hissed. “Where is he?” it asked. “We can smell him still, do not try to hide him from us!”

“Where is who?” Poppy innocently asked. “We meet so many people, don’t you know.”

“Yes,” Dekaras said. “It comes with working in a people oriented profession.” He was watching the vampire cautiously, trying to anticipate an attack. Having fought such beings before, he knew exactly how dangerous they were, and how fast.

The vampire’s eyes narrowed angrily. “You dare question me, carrion? Give the Bhaalspawn to me, or suffer the consequences!”

Bhaalspawn? Now that is interesting. “A Bhaalspawn, you say?” Dekaras asked, making himself sound vaguely bored even as his finger slid imperceptibly towards a certain hidden pocket. “And what would you be wanting with such a one?” That twitchy little person was a child of Murder? How very odd. He didn’t look as if he could hurt a fly. On the other hand, I suppose Zaerini didn’t look much like Sarevok either.

“That is not for you to know, human! Only for the Mistress! Now, will you give him to me?”

“Nope!” Poppy cheerfully said, shifting her grip on her sword. “We don’t like getting ordered about by bucktoothed smelly old corpses.”

“I AM NOT BUCKTOOTHED!”

“Ah, of course not,” Dekaras thoughtfully added. “I can see it now. The impression is caused solely by your weak and receding chin. Whatever the case, it’s pretty much unsightly. Almost as much as the almost complete mindlessness in your expression, though I suppose one shouldn’t expect too much from a wandering carcass that simply hasn’t realized it’s dead yet. Here is a hint. If you want to make a favorable impression on people, try hiding your face first. A solid black cloak raised in front of it should do the trick. I’m not about to lend you mine though; for one thing I doubt I’d ever get rid of the stench. What do you even need to bite people for? You can simply breathe on them and they’ll keel over dead.” Very good. He’s extremely angry now, and that will make him careless. Just one more, to cap things off. “And I hope you haven’t invested heavily in an expensive coffin. When my friend and I are done with you, a small urn will be quite enough.”

Screeching with rage the vampire attacked with the speed of a charging tiger, fangs bared.

Well, I got what I wanted, Dekaras thought. Now let’s just hope the other part of the plan works, or this situation could rapidly become very awkward.