Firesign 1 - Wage Slave Rebellion (12 page)

“Gotcha,” said Gavi, writing this down as well.

“Any suggestions on where to focus our search?” asked Mazik.

“Later. Don’t you want to know who they are first?” said Taronn.

“Wait, you know?” asked Mazik, surprised and excited.

“No,” said Taronn. Mazik instantly deflated. “But we do have some good guesses. And they’re not mine, they’re hers,” he said, nodding at Xer. She waved perkily.

“Oh, okay,” said Mazik, exhaling. “That works too. Lay it on me.”

Xer laid her palms on the book in front of her. “In short, I concur with the prevailing assumption that they’re divine casters, and I have some suggestions that might help you capture them.”

“Divs. Wonderful. My
favorite
,” said Mazik. Raedren and Gavi, the latter still slouched over her notepad, both smiled. Taronn nodded in agreement.

Kalenia walked back in with a tray full of teacups. She set it down and began handing them out.

“Thank you,” said Gavi. She turned back to Xer. “Is there any proof they’re divine casters? Everyone says that, but they could be wrong.”

Xer shook her head. “No real proof, just conjecture. It’s what makes the most sense, though. It all comes down to motive.”

At this Xer stood up and walked to the nearest blackboard. It sported three numbers enclosed in circles, with crude drawings beneath each. Xer picked up a piece of chalk and twirled it once.

“What do they want? From the two sightings we have, there have always been multiple kidnappers, up to four individuals so far. They could be insane, but truly crazy people don’t usually work in groups, and serial killers aren’t usually so indiscriminate. That means they probably have something uniting them.”

The others nodded. “Makes sense to me,” said Mazik.

“Okay, so the question is, what is it that unites them?” said Xer. “Since there’s no correlation between the victims as individuals, it must be something more general. And given everything we know, there are three main possibilities.”

The chalk thudded against the chalkboard below the number one, where a crude approximation of the Houkian flag lay. “One, they’re attacking them because they’re Houkians, or think they are. Whether they’re unhappy with our government or from an enemy state, they want to hurt Houk as a whole, and this is how they’ve decided to do it.”

“Not a real good way to hurt us, if that’s the case,” said Mazik. “They’re scaring the hell out of people, but their victims are all normal people. If they really wanted to hurt the city, they would need to do more than this.”

“If it was being done by one or two people, I would disagree,” said Xer. “Then this could be the best they could do. But since there are more people involved, it does seem like they could do more harm elsewhere.”

“Especially if it’s an enemy country,” said Taronn. “They wouldn’t risk a war over killing a few civilians.”

“Correct,” said Xer. She drew an X over the flag and moved onto the next one. Underneath the circled two was a stylized letter C with a slash through it. “Two, they’re attacking them because they’re not casters. Not because it’s easier, but because they’re violently discriminating against nons.”

“That’s a nice thought,” said Gavi.

“No one ever said this was going to be all chocolates and blowjobs,” said Mazik.

“Except for you,” said Raedren. “You told me exactly that two days ago, on the way home from The Joker. Word for word.”

“Well, yes, but no one said you should
believe
me.”

“But you don’t think that’s what’s going on here, do you?” said Gavi, ignoring her companions. “Is it because they’re not killing their victims?”

Xer glanced over at Taronn, who took that as his cue.

“That’s certainly part of it,” said Taronn. “If they hated nons so much, you’d expect them to be sending some kind of message, likely in entrails and blood. Now, it’s still possible that they’re waiting until they’ve kidnapped more people to do exactly that, but it seems too calculating for people killing out of hate. Or not killing, as the case may be.”

Taronn took a sip of his tea. “Plus, I wouldn’t expect people like that to be so…” He hesitated, and then shrugged. “Well,
good
at it. These guys are acting like their victims are valuable to them, and like they really don’t want to get caught.”

“Exactly,” said Xer, crossing out the second option. “Which brings us to option three.” She tapped the chalk next to a picture of a stick figure wearing messily filled-in robes. “Divine casters. I did some research, and I found over fifty different gods who have a ritual or ceremony that requires the sacrifice of sentient beings, and that was only until I got too depressed to keep looking,” she said, smiling wanly. “If the kidnappers are worshippers of one of those gods, that means they not only have the motive, but also a reason to not kill their victims until they’ve collected enough sacrifices.”

“Could there be multiple, unconnected groups?” asked Gavi. “Copycats, or someone taking advantage of the first group’s activities to abduct people for their own reasons?”

“Maybe, but I don’t think so,” said Xer. “Nothing I’ve heard indicates any deviations in how they operate, and both known sightings describe them in largely the same way. Until there’s some reason to think otherwise, I would assume it’s all one group.”

“So they’re probably divs,” said Mazik.

Xer nodded. “Yes, probably. It could be something else, but we think this is the most likely possibility.”

Mazik let loose a long, tired sigh. “Oh goodie. Divs.”

“Think of it like this,” said Taronn. “You might get to beat some of them up.”

Mazik brightened up. “There is that.”

“Any idea which god they’re following?” asked Gavi.

Xer shook her head. “No. Not enough information to know for sure. All we know for sure is that they abduct people and wear black robes, and those are pretty popular among the kinds of gods who demand sentient sacrifices.”

“You don’t have to be 100 percent certain. Do you have any guesses?” asked Mazik.

Kalenia spoke up first. “This might not have any bearing on which god they’re worshiping, but we think there’s a good chance they’re using some kind of invisibility magick.”

“Yeah, I was thinking the same thing,” said Mazik. “If it weren’t for the robes I would say they could be getting by without it, but if they’re going to run around in suspicious black robes then they’d definitely need something else. If we narrowed it down to only the gods who demand sacrifices and give their worshippers some sort of invisibility magick, how many would that be?”

Xer picked up a book stuffed with bookmarks. She flipped through it. “If you’re talking about only the gods who give a large percentage of their worshippers invisibility magick, five that I’ve found so far. If we expand that to those who give invisibility magick to four or more of their high-ranking worshippers, the number would be many times that. Twenty or more that I can think of, easily.”

“And if they’re using arc magick, you’re screwed,” said Taronn.

“That’s nothing new,” said Mazik. He pointed at the book. “Can I see that?”

“Of course,” said Xer, handing it to him.

Mazik looked at the spine for one second, and then passed it to Raedren.

Raedren turned the book around. Etched on the gently used maroon cover in letters of faded gold were two words:
Practical Mythology
.

“They’re the ones with the brown bookmarks,” said Xer.

“Thank you,” said Raedren. He opened the book and disappeared from the conversation.

Xer turned back to the chalkboard and circled the third option, and then gently laid the chalk to rest among its fellows. “So we can assume they’re using some kind of invisibility magick. Can all of you use sight-enhancement magick?”

“Rae and I can,” said Mazik.

“I can’t,” said Gavi. “That’s high-level stuff. I’m nowhere near that good.”

“Wait, you can?” said Taronn. “Then why the hell are you working as a salesman?”

“Because I didn’t try hard in school and the place I work for recruits heavily at Telman,” said Mazik. “Also, I’m a dumbass and I was running out of money.”

“Ah.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, are you willing to change religions?” asked Xer.

Gavi shrugged. “Sure, why not
²⁷
?”

“I know one that might help. The god Hierdy’nt, sometimes just called the Warden, offers a divine magick called Trueseeing,” said Xer. “It will allow you to enhance your eyes enough to see through most invisibility spells. Only your eyes, though—it won’t do anything for your other senses.”

“Hopefully that will be enough,” said Gavi. No one was surprised there was a god offering the spell she needed—with thousands of gods offering thousands of divine magicks, the trick was finding the right one. Fortunately, Xer was an expert. “Do you know where I can find one of its priests?”

“Yes. Levi’s God Emporium
²⁸
.”

“Oh, fun. Haven’t been there in a while,” said Gavi. “Thank you, I’ll go do that.”

“That will be helpful once we’re actually out looking for them, but first we need to narrow down where we’re going to be doing that,” said Mazik. He turned to Taronn. “You said you had some suggestions on where to search, right? Because, ya know”—he waved at the map—“big city.”

“Yes yes,” said Taronn. He grabbed a smaller, blank map and a pencil.

“Here’s what I think. First, the edges of town. Avoid them.” Taronn drew Xs all around the city. “The city guard thinks the kidnappers are probably hiding outside the city, so they’ve got extra people stationed on the walls. That tells me either they’re wrong and the kidnappers are staying inside the city, or they’ll catch them there eventually. Either way, there’s no use in your being there.

“Next, the same idea but for inside the city. If there are a lot of guards somewhere, you shouldn’t be there, or you’ll have a hard time claiming the reward even if you do find them. Fortunately, I can help you with that,” said Taronn as he snagged another map from behind him and passed it to Raedren. Raedren looked at it for a second, and then passed it to Gavi.

“I know a guy in the city guard,” Taronn explained as Gavi poured over the map. “I talked to him yesterday, and he sketched out approximate patrol routes for his part of the city. He’s based near the docks, so this has the patrol routes for the eastern half of the city.”

“Wow. This is really useful,” said Mazik as he leaned over to see.

“Not as useful as you’re thinking,” said Taronn. “These will be good for tonight, maybe a few days, but after that they’ll change. Unless you can figure out a way to get reliable updates, this will become outdated fast. That’s not why I got it for you, though,” said Taronn as he took a sip of his tea. “I got it so you could see the kinds of places they’re patrolling and use that to pick areas to target or avoid. I wrote down a few ideas of my own in the bottom corner.

“Along the same lines, you should try to figure out where other adventurers are concentrating their efforts, and go somewhere else,” said Taronn. “Focus on the places with less competition. That way if you do find them, you’ll have a chance of actually collecting the reward.”

“So your strategy is to focus more on making sure we can actually collect on the quest than making sure we find them,” said Mazik. “I like it.”

Taronn finally smiled. It was toothy and not very kind. “I thought you might. It may also be the best way to find them, though. After all, there’s no reason for them to risk hunting in crowded areas when all the other ones will do.”

“Especially when there’s so much city to cover,” said Mazik. “Anything else we should keep in mind?”

“You should avoid any place that’s too wide open,” said Taronn. “These guys seem too smart for that. They’ll depend on alleyways and other dark places to augment their invisibility magick.” Taronn pulled a list out of his pocket and examined it, then shrugged. “That’s about it. Not enough information to narrow it down any more than that.”

“Actually, you’ve been a big help,” said Gavi. “Like Mazik said earlier, if they were easy to find, someone would have caught them already.”

Mazik nodded. He had been looking at the large map. “By the way, can you leave this out for a few days? I’d like to come by and copy the rest of the information from it.”

“Yes, we’ll leave it right here,” said Kalenia.

Taronn grunted. “Now it’s time to talk about our payment.”

“You’ve got my hearty thanks and everlasting respect!” said Mazik quickly. “And any love I have left after K’s portion.” He glanced over at Kalenia. “Which is all of it. So no love. Just the other two things.”

“Great, but we don’t want any of that,” said Taronn. He glanced at Xer, who clasped her hands together and nodded. Suddenly, even that seemed menacing.

“…please, be gentle,” said Mazik lamely.

Taronn burst out laughing. He walked around the table until he was staring up at Mazik.

“Don’t worry. We both owed your girlfriend a couple of favors, so that took care of most of it,” said Taronn. “Just take us out to lunch and we’re even. Somewhere nice, though,” he said, suddenly stern.

“I don’t know … but I guess I must!” said Mazik, giving in quickly. “How does tomorrow sound? We’ve got to get back to work soon, but we should have plenty of time when we don’t spend half of it in deliberations.”

“Works for me,” said Taronn.

“That sounds great!” said Xer with a gentle smile.

“Of course, that includes you as well, darling,” said Mazik, shooting Kalenia a wink. “As thanks for everything.”

“Thank you. That sounds lovely,” said Kalenia.

“And we’re welcome to come too, we just have to pay for ourselves, right?” said Raedren.

“Correct! How did you guess?” said Mazik.

“Pattern recognition,” said Raedren dryly.

“Known me for more than fifteen minutes, gotcha,” said Mazik. He pushed his stool back and stood up. “Now, I think it’s probably time for us to get out of here. Jobs to get back to and all that.”

There was a chorus of farewells, and then Mazik, Gavi, and Raedren departed.