The Dragon Games

The Man in Black

It started small, with pickpocketing busy streets. Regan would pretend to read a book while Angelo picked out an unsuspecting target. Then Regan would levitate whatever was sticking out of their pockets, and Angelo would snatch it out of the air and run. But the problem was, they stole more lint than anything of value, and Angelo would raise suspicions if he kept pacing back and forth the same street. 

So pickpocketing turned into riskier but more lucrative prospects, like burglary. They visited small shops at the dead of night, first taking only enough to stay fed, then emptying out whatever they could find. Quickly, Regan discovered that with a little Divine, creativity, and willingness to get your hands dirty, food came easy. Laughably easy, after all the years she spent pining for it. And she did not just have enough to eat. For the first time in her life, she could afford to visit the shopping district.

Regan, Iris, and Angelo caught a boat downstream, then spent an afternoon wandering around. The long cobblestone streets were packed with an assortment of shops: bakeries, tailors, potters. While Angelo bought himself a shiny new dagger, Regan bought her and Iris matching bonnets. Iris beamed, provided a never ending flow of chatter and she and Regan walked arm and arm. Regan was only half listening. Her eyes wandered the busy streets, soaking up the sights. She had never traveled this far from the burrow before, lacking the fund to afford the faire. A sharp squeal caught her attention.

Across the street, a beggar stepped in front of a rich mother and daughter duo, blocking their path. The daughter, only about thirteen years or so, looked terrified, her eyes darting from the scarffed wrapped around the beggar's face, to the cloth covering the stumps where his hands should have been. He was a victim of The Bind, a procedure knights perfomered on people that used the Divine to break the law. Most victims of the Divine ended up in the back alleyways of the burrows, begging for scraps and sleeping on the streets.

"Ella," Angelo said. "Why don't you run along and buy yourself something pretty?"

"My name Iris." But Iris argued no more when Angelo set a few coppers in her hand. She squealed and took off to a dress shop.

"So," Angelo said. "I have a new job for us, the most lucrative one yet. It's fairly risky, but if we pull it off, we might not have to work again for another year."

Regan tore her eyes away from the victim of The Bind. "Enough."

"But, Regan, if we –"

"Enough. Just tell me the time and place, and I'll be there."

– – –

Pauly's inn reeked of smoke and sin. It was hot and overcrowded, the ceiling caved in, and the furnitured looked like it suffered through a war, but you would be hard pressed to find a more popular building in all the burrow. Flushed face men slurred as they swung their cups in the air and shouted, "Wench, pour me another!" A poet stood by the fire place, singing filthy limmericks for anyone who would listen. Young couples rolled against the walls, and it was not uncommon to see a buttox or two before the night's end. But the real action happened at the tables.

Each table had a different gambling game going on. The biggest crowd surrounded a spinning wheel. Each section of the wheel was painted black or white, except they very smallest section, which was bright gold. The crowd sang a merry jag while the wheel spun, holding their breath when the wheel approached the gold section, then groaning when it spun by.

No children were allowed near the gambling, except the serving wenches. Regan bought another girl's uniform for five coppers and spent the first half of the night serving beers and cleaning tables, waiting for sundown. When the light started fading from the sky, Angelo arrived, brushing Regan's shoulder as he stepped past. That was her cue. Regan crawled under a table, pretending to clean the floor as she watched Angelo saunter up to the spinning wheel. Thanks to his lumbering height, he looked older than his true age, and no one tried to stop him from betting.