Renee and Houndsfang

Rolf had been gone from the alehouse for almost twenty minutes, leaving Renee and Olivia to worry that their plan was backfiring somehow. Olivia continued to ply the ‘upper’ members of the Risen Wolf gang with booze and her charm during that time, while Renee brooded mysteriously, cutting through the conversation occasionally to say something ominously ‘fortune teller-y’ so she could keep up her appearances.

When the lieutenant of the gang finally returned, he wove his way through the alehouse tables and benches, the crowds of other bandits parting for him. He went straight to Renee, leaning down to speak to her quietly.

“Lady Shadow, the Houndsfang will meet with you,” he said. “You can find him in the shelter next door. But… you better be telling the truth. Some say he can sniff out lies like a hog hunting truffles. I think it’s more like a bloodhound with the scent.”

“Well, then,” Renee said, her accent strong and exotic, lending an air to her ‘mysterious’ powers. “It is a good thing that I have no reason to lie.”

Renee signalled to Olivia, and they both started to stand, but Rolf cleared his throat. “Ah, the Houndsfang will meet with you, Lady Shadow. You, Olivia, will need to wait here.”

The two adventurers made brief eye contact and communicated through a series of subtle shifts of their eyebrows before Renee nodded and stood fully. “Then I expect that you all will have another night of raucous revelry if you intend to keep your time with my bodyguard. Olivia, try not to embarrass these men too much with how you can outdrink them.”

“It wouldn’t be on purpose,” Olivia smirked good-naturedly at the men and women around the table. “They’ll do it to themselves.”

Renee left as the table roared their argument that Olivia certainly couldn’t drink one of them under the table, let alone all of them.

She made it out of the alehouse building without any issues, weaving past the guards keeping casual watch outside, and crossed the clearing to the one other standing structure in the entire camp. Where the alehouse was slightly round, this one was blocky and looked like it might have only been the base for an even larger building of some sort, but now it was of an equal height with the alehouse. There were two guards standing outside this door as well, both of the Risen Wolf Gang, and they seemed to know she was coming because one turned to lead her in.

The inside of the ancient structure seemed to be split in half, unlike the alehouse which was one cavernous room. The front half was where much of the Risen Wolf Gang seemed to be making their camp, almost treating it as a barracks. Bedding was lined up in neat rows, and things were relatively tidy compared to the state of the rest of the camp. The only thing missing were the bandits, but with it being mid-afternoon there were only a couple of them bedded down in a corner taking a nap.

A broad archway served as a door between the front and back half of the building, and they had hung up leather sheets rigged like curtains to keep the two separated. The bandit leading Renee in, or maybe just guarding to make sure she didn’t rifle through the group’s stuff, went straight to the leather ‘door’ and stuck his head through. “She’s ‘ere,” he said.

Renee didn’t hear him receive an answer, but the guard withdrew from the door and swept it partially open with an arm, his stony face impassive as he waved Renee through. She had to duck as she entered, and he dropped the leather hanging back into place as soon as she passed.

The back half of the building was much like the front, one big room that had served some unknown purpose centuries ago. The floor, unlike the alehouse or the outer room, showed smooth paving stones instead of dirt that had built up and caked over the other two. It was dim inside, lit by a pair of braziers that let off a soft glow but set the corners of the room into deep shadows.

Not a problem for Renee. The shadows were her home, and her friends.

The only real feature of the dark space was the wooden throne that had been dragged in there. It was impossible to know if it had been there for a decade, or a century, or had just been dragged in by the Risen Wolf Gang days ago, but the thing was big and heavy, sitting in the middle of the floor. Alexander Houndsfang was lounging on the throne, slumped into it like a man used to the grandeur of his seat, dressed in a simple worn but relatively clean linen shirt, leather britches and boots.

He wasn’t alone, however. Tora, the female lieutenant and Rolf’s sister, was almost present and stood with a much more rigid posture, her hands behind her as she glared coldly at Renee as she approached.

“Rolf says that you and your bodyguards have been… overlooked,” Houndsfang said. “He calls you ‘Lady Shadow’ and you’ve seemed to have convinced him that you are easily a match for Shinevra and her druid apprentices.”

“Last I heard, you and your two companions were causing issues in camp,” Tora grunted.

“Lord Houndsfang,” Renee said, sweeping into a curtsy about ten feet from the throne, playing up her accent again. “Tora. My name is Renee de l’Ombre, and I am a shadow twister. I can call them, shape them, and send my little friends out.” She raised a hand and, with a simple casting of prestidigitation, made shadows dance around her fingers like anti-sparks, a spray cloud of darkness. “It makes sense that sweet Rolf called me ‘Lady Shadow,’ and I do not mind it so much.”

Alexander sat up in his chair a bit, leaning forward as he narrowed his eyes. They were a man’s eyes but sent a cold chill up Renee’s spine as if she were being examined by a predator. “You can do tricks,” he said, his voice deep and rumbly. “But I’ve met charlatans who could do little magic tricks before. Most of them relied too much on tricks and not enough on the truth of their limitations. I’ll need to see more than a little wiggle of your fingers to be impressed.”

“I would have had no doubt,” Renee said with an easy smile. “A demonstration is easy enough. Something tangible, yes? To show that my shadow arts have a… keen edge.”

Rhia groaned at the table. “Are you going to waste a bigger spell just to prove yourself to him?”

“Well, how else am I supposed to do it?” Elyse asked, breaking character momentarily. “I’m alone in here, and Tora is guarding him. I can’t just start blasting him and expect to get out of here. Especially because Jade is off suckin’ dick.”

Tori snorted, covering her smile with a hand. “Hey, don’t blame me for this.”

“Just… fine,” Rhia said, waving her off. “This feels like a missed opportunity is all if you have to use up your magic on demonstrations.”

“Fact-finding first,” Elyse said. “Then blasting or **** if it makes sense.”

Renee ended up having both Houndsfang and Tora pull out their daggers and simultaneously toss them high into the air. She loosed her magic missiles, shadow darts streaking out from her hands in swirling arcs and pinging off both daggers. She was about to loose the third dart of her spell when Houndsfang moved like lightning, drawing another dagger from his sleeve and throwing it directly at the sorceress.

I asked Elyse what her split-second reaction was and she stammered ‘Shoot it, too’ so I had her roll a spellcaster check to see if she could react and change her target for the spell time. She shook the die in her cupped hands, biting the inside of her cheek nervously, then let it roll.

“Fourteen,” she said with a ‘that’s not bad’ tone, “Aaand… plus my spellcasting modifier?”

“Yep,” I nodded. “Charisma plus proficiency.”

“Oh, that’s good, twenty even!” Elyse said.

Renee’s third magic missile came scooping out of her hands, flying straight at the dagger as time seemed to slow for a moment, the spinning blade a silver blur in the light from the braziers as it closed with the shadow dart. They struck each other with clang and the dagger was knocked backwards, clattering to the ground and skipping over the stones all the way back to the feet of the throne.

A moment later the other two daggers clanged as they hit the stone floor well back behind the throne in the darkness, having been knocked hard enough to reverse the direction of their flights.

“A less artful, more direct demonstration then,” Renee said coldly. “I planned to make your knives dance. But I think that should do. Now, I need a return demonstration, Lord Houndsfang. I can see that you have some power here; power over men at the fringes of the world. To call them, and make them behave like hunting hounds. You inspire fear in them, but fear is not so uncommon. I don’t want to know what your plans are, not until you are ready to share them, but I need you to convince me why I should remain in this camp, where the hunting dogs snarl and nip at each other constantly. Why I should swear my powers to your ambition, without even knowing how far that ambition can take you. So tell me about your ambitions, Alexander Houndsfang. Impress me.”

“Daring,” I said with a grin, nodding to Elyse. She blushed a little and fanned herself as she laughed at how ballsy she was being. “Alright,” I continued. “You’re going to need to give me your choice of a Deception, Diplomacy or Performance check… in a moment. First, we need to look back at the alehouse and Olivia…”

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