From: albert@bcm.tmc.edu (Rick Jones) Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Subject: [GATM] [storm] Krupp [Low City] Trying to Reason in Hurricane Season Date: 18 Apr 1993 03:57:32 GMT Message-ID: <1qqjjc$mck@gazette.bcm.tmc.edu> [ADMIN: This segment starts before the STORM makes landfall. I'm running behind, unfortunately.] Well, as I made my way across Low City, the storm was getting worse. The Guardsmen were running around under the orders of the Sea Watch placing bags of sand, and depositing magically dohickeys in crucial areas. Fortunately, the rain went through me, and the rapidly rising winds didn't bowl me over. I reached the Twinfish warehouse just when the storm was really getting nasty. The evening sky was black as midnight in a coal mine, and the rain was coming down in sheets. I started wandering around the building, trying to decide the best way to take the joint. Then, I smelled something. Or at least, it seemed like a smell, but one I didn't recall smelling before. Whatever it was, it was making me hungry. I started sniffing deeply, and tried to find the source of the odor. I started towards a pile of garbage, that seemed to be producing the smell, when the garbage sneezed. "Hey, who's in there," I asked. "Zip," answered the garbage. I looked closer, and saw a snuffling little kid in the garbage. He stank, but overlaying the stink of garbage was a pleasant smell. I walked closer, and put on my best friendly face. "Zip, why are you playing in the garbage?" "S'warm." Aw, sheeze. He's gonna catch the icky-awfuls there. "My name's Krupp, Zip. Would like to go to a warm place? A clean place." The kid got up and started to shiver. "Ten copper, same as Joy Street," he said defiantly. I realized what the smell was. Despair. And my 'body' was eating it up. I wished I could throw up. "No, no, no. This's straight up. No Cuddleboy. No thatch." "Wut den?" "I'll give you a silver, if you take a jekt to Res-Verita at the West Side Hostel, and wait for me there." The kid's eyes lit up. "Silver? Not shiv?" "Not shiv. It's bigbig." I knew the Low City kidspeak. Nobody pays attention to 'em, but they see everything that goes on. "Where's the Wet Side Hostile?" asked Zip. Sigh, for all her work, the WSH still needed better advertisiing. I gave the kid the arrow and directions and told him to scoot. The Sisters would keep the kid dry and clean him up at least. I just had to remember to scrounge a silver before picking up the kid. Since I no longer had to worry about the arrow blocking me from going through the wall, I simply walked in. It was pretty dark in there, but whatever my eyes were made out of seemed to be handling it it okay. There were a couple of heavies wandering around, looking for trouble. Fortunately, there weren't looking for ghosts, and so they didn't see one. The uglier of the two (and it was a close call), leaned back against a rack of crates, and lit up a cigar. "Balefires, Mick, why we gotta guard tonite? Listen to that storm. Nobody but nobody is going to be out." The walls creaked, and the wind whipping through the alleyways started a wailing cry. Mick yanked out the cigar and stomped on it. "Goob, we're here cuz we're paid to be here." "That was a good cigar," complained Goob. Mick threw up his hands in disgust. "You got someplace better to be?" "Spittin' Cobra's nice. One of the wenches digs me." Mick laughed, "you and everyone else. Look, I'm going downstairs for some caff. Want some?" "Nah." Mick picked up a crossbow and started walking farther into the warehouse, between crates and racks and other piles of stuff. I glanced at some of the labels, nothing too interesting, but I made a note of 'em, just in case. A crash of thunder rattled the building, and a small trickle of rain started dripping down from the roof onto Mick. "Damn rain," he cursed. He reached a large crate near the center of the building and pulled up the side. Inside was a stairwell down. Damn if this ghost business made some things easier. The stairwell went down into a basement. Mick busied himself with a pot of caff, and poured himself a cup. Looking both ways, he pulled out a cigar of his own, and started puffing on it. I smirked at him, and decided to explore further on down the passageway. First room was empty, except for some locked chests. I poked my head inside. Full of silvers, plus a few gold. Nothing that interested me, especially since I couldn't take 'em through the chest wall. Another echo of thunder reverberated through the cave. That one was louder. The storm was getting worse. Good. The next door had a sliver of light poking out from the bottom of the doorway. I poked my head through, and there he was. Numbers was hunched over a huge ledger. Sitting next to him was a small bottle with a tiny figure in it. Numbers adjusted his glasses and scratched his huge nose. My uncle Dunkan said once that all gnomes' height was squished out into their noses. I agree with him. Anyway, Numbers mumbled. "two thousand five hundred forty six, marked up twelve percent." The figure in the bottle glowed, and a high pitched voice squeeked out. "Two thousand, eight hundred fifty one point five two." Numbers kept feeding the critter bookkeeping stuff, and it spat back numbers. The critter was obviously bored. I decided to take a closer peek. I walked all the way through the door. I sat down on a pile of books and watched him work. Boring. So, I had the guy who bought the arrow that killed me. So what did I do now? I stood up, and walked around the small desk, to read over his shoulder. "Give me a sum of the following figures," started Numbers. I looked down over his shoulder. The critter, which I saw was an imp of some kind, looked up at me and screamed in panic. Numbers started and fell backwards on his chair, knocking papers everywhere. He sat up on the floor and looked around wildly. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary (just your average invisible ghost), he looked irately at the bottled demon and said, "Lotus, you little wanker. What the grot was that for?" It sputtered. "The guy, right there." It pointed it's tiny finger at me. I smirked and waved back at it. "The hobbit." I heard a crash of thunder from upstairs. It was getting noisy up there. Numbers looked straight at me. Didn't see anything. I mentally tossed a coin. Heads. I picked up a piece of paper and started waving it around. Numbers' eyes bugged out of his head. I started thinking visible thoughts, and faded into view. "Hiya, Numbers. I think you dropped this." Numbers started scrabbling backwards on the floor in a crabwalk. I walked towards him slowly. "You... you..., you're," said Numbers. "Alive," I lied. "And with magic using friends. I didn't figure that the thing in the jar could see me." I gestured at his chair. "And don't try to call for the guards. The door's spelled to block your screams." I concentrated on scaring him. He started to smell of fear, and sat down. Good. This dead stuff was good for something. I hopped up on his desk and sat down on the edge, facing him. The imp was looking at me funny. Damn, I didn't want the little booger to rat on me anymore. "So," I continued, "who tried to snuff me, Numbers. And no lies, pall. I'll know." "Look. Krupp, it was just business. Creft said you were going to blow his dockside lines to the Keepers. Nothing personal." I frowned, and he blanched a little. "I take people shooting at me very personally." I looked around nonchalantly. "So, who was the archer?" Numbers laughed self-consciously. "It doesn't matter, Krupp." "Why not?" Numbers jiggled a pencil across his fingers. "Well, it's like this, Krupp. You were causing Creft problems, right?" "Right, right. Get on with it." I was getting impatient. I thought about using the whammy on him some more, but held off. Didn't want him faint away. Besides, I didn't like it. "Creft saw your were getting close to his smuggling ring, see? But he didn't want it traceable to him." "Why the then? I knew about the connection." Numbers made a feeble attempt at smiling. "But not many others did. Besides, they'd figure the Demon Spiders did it. And who'd miss a little gumshoe?" "Watch the 'little' crack, shorty. You're not so big yourself." I hopped off the desk, and straightened some papers. "So, enough of the stall. Who did it?" "It was-" Numbers stopped, and looked down at his chest, which had just grown a crossbow bolt. I whirled to see Mick, holding a two shot crossbow and smiling a grin of pure malice. He looked at me in shock. "Krupp?" he muttered. "But that's impossible." He pointed the crossbow at me, and fired. -- Rick Jones albert@bcm.tmc.edu Barney is the Lizard King, Systems Support Center he can do anything. Voice: 713-798-7352 -Sean Pogue (on talk.bizarre)