She accepts

Teysa hesitated. She did not relish the prospect of breaking legs for the Eel. In the course of her life, her holy crusade had sometimes taken her into dark places, but working for sinners like the Eel always left a bad taste in her mouth. She felt instinctively that her gifts were meant for a higher purpose.

But she was no longer the naive girl who had left the Abbey of St. Petronius ready to save the world. She knew that sometimes, you just did the job that was in front of you. And this was not her first encounter with the Eel. The drow was probably mad, certainly dangerous, and not the least bit trustworthy, but she had come through for Teysa last time. Refusing her, too, was likely to be dangerous. The Eel did not like to be balked.

"Of course, milady," Teysa said, biting back her frustration. "I would be glad to help you. What do you need?"

"Ooh, thith one ith tho polite!" the Eel said. She giggled girlishly and covered her mouth with one hand. "Take note, everyone! Thith ith how I want to be addrethed! With thome rethpect!" She swiveled her head around to look at her motley court. They murmured agreement, bowing and scraping as her gaze fell on them. When she turned back to Teysa she was smiling.

"It'th a thimple job, my dear. One I'm thure will appeal to you... thenthibilitieth. There'th a warehouthe on the other thide of the market. What I care about ith in big barrelth. A... buthineth rival of mine hath been bringing in chemicalth. I want you to torch 'em. Hith vile poisonth are polluting the veinth of my people." The Eel frowned, and continued, "I want them to only uthe my poithonth. Tho you're going to do some inventory control. Got it?" She waved a hand dismissively. "Kohaar will give you directionth. Enjoy yourthelveth."

Kohaar turned out to be a conservatively dressed male drow with a little office space set back against one wall. He seemed out of place among the club's other denizens. He peered at them over a tiny set of half-moon spectacles perched on the tip of his nose. When Teysa explained why she had come, he did not seem surprised. "Ah. You are the mistress's latest hires? She told me that she was planning to retain some independent contractors." Even his voice was fussy and precise. He pushed a vellum scroll across the counter towards Teysa. "You'll find the location in question clearly marked here. If you are caught, the mistress will disavow you, do you understand? Do not expect an assist from this quarter." He smiled a little, as though he had just made a hilarious joke and was waiting to see if they understood it. "In return, she has authorized me to credit you for a year's tribute. Is that correct?"

"Yes, that's right," Teysa snapped. She hated dealing with criminals, but people like Kohaar were even worse. At least the Eel was honest about what she was. El'keth stared at him as though hypnotized-- Teysa sensed that she was probably forming an inappropriate question, and quickly beckoned for her little group to follow her outside.

Only once they had left the club did Teysa breath easier. She looked from Aliara to Jez'ria, carefully avoiding El'keth's gaze. "Alright," she said. "We'll do this tonight, then?"

"Makes sense," said Aliara. "How do we know when nighttime is, here, anyways?"

"They use bellz," Jez'ria explained. "Market closez at nine bellz, usually, and openz at six."

"Eleven bells, then," Aliara said. "Tey, let's scout it out while it's daylight."

"I can help!" burst out El'keth, as though she had been bottling up her words. "A quest! I want to come with you, Teysa!"

"El'keth, I think we have to be inconspicuous," Teysa said, as kindly as she could. "Not that I don't think you're capable... but how many driders have you seen since you got here?"

El'keth looked crestfallen, but nodded. "What shall I do, then?" she asked.

"Thiz iz a vorking trip, little one," Jez'ria said. "Ve have businez to do. You need to learn how to buy, how to sell. Your mother wantz you to learn, yez? Thiz job may not be glamorouz, but it keepz the varren supplied."

"Yes, Jez'ria," said El'keth, hanging her head. "You're right."

"It'll be fun, El'keth," said Teysa, trying to inject some cheer into her voice. "You love meeting new people, right? I guarantee that you'll meet all kinds. Besides, you don't want to work for someone like the Eel anyways. She's... not a good person."

"Well, why are you doing it?" El'keth asked. "It sounds like she wants you to do something illegal."

"Sometimes, you gotta do what you gotta do," Aliara interjected. "But it's not fun. It's not a quest. Teysa and I just want to get this done as quick and clean as possible."

"Well... ok," said El'keth. She didn't sound convinced. "Good luck, Teysa and Aliara."

They agreed to meet at the Golden Cockatrice, a nearby inn that often provided accommodations for travelers. "El'keth and I vill sleep in the stablez," Jez'ria explained. "They know me." The prospect did not seem to thrill El'keth, but she said nothing.

Teysa could feel forlorn eyes on the back of her neck as she and Aliara crossed the market square. "Poor thing," she said. "I don't think this trip is turning out the way she expected."

"Eh, it's good for her," said Aliara. "In life you gotta do some boring things you don't wanna do. She'll have to get used to that if she's going to rule someday."

"That's certainly true," said Teysa. "Remember when we had to guard that tower? In, uh, Ilthank, I think it was."

"Oh yeah!" Aliara laughed out loud. "The guy said we should expect to be attacked every day! Remember? You were so serious. 'I solemnly vow, sir, no harm will come to you while I draw breath.'" Her "Teysa voice" sounded a little pompous, but Teysa giggled at it all the same.

"Not once!" Teysa said. "Nothing happened! Not in three months! I swear to god I counted every leaf on every tree I could see from the guardpost. And my poor feet! My bunions had bunions."

The two of them lost themselves in tales of the past. They were so wrapped up in their storytelling that they barely noticed when they had arrived. Teysa stopped short suddenly, barely preventing herself from colliding with a man standing in front of the door.

She looked up at him. Then up, and up. At first she thought he was a statue-- he was taller than Jez'ria, with skin the color and texture of granite. Then his massive brow wrinkled in annoyance, and Teysa took a couple of involuntary steps backward. He wore a few scraps of mismatched armor, but it hardly seemed necessary. The skin beneath looked like weathered stone. His massive arms were crossed in front of him. He blinked once then regarded them with eyes the color of flint.

"Wut you doin?" he asked in a voice like an avalanche. When the reverberations had died away, Teysa spoke up. He voice was a little higher-pitched than she'd intended. "Uh, begging your pardon, sir," she said. "We are just visitors, and we heard that--"

"Dis is a private party," the giant rumbled. "You on da list?"

"So sorry, we must have gotten bad information," Aliara said. She was all smiles as she led Teysa away. "We didn't mean to waste your time. Have a great day, sir." She didn't stop until the two of them were a healthy distance away from the door. The giant watched them go impassively. They regrouped amid a cluster of market stalls and Aliara made a great show of inspecting carpet samples until she was sure that they had lost his attention.

"So what do we do?" Teysa hissed at her. "We aren't getting in through him!"

"Relax, Tey," Aliara said. "This is my business, remember? The sneaky stuff? Let's just stay and watch for a while."

They meandered aimlessly between stalls, inspecting a roast chicken here, a telescope there, commenting on the obvious quality of the wares on offer but never buying anything. Their apparently random wanderings never took them too close or too far from the door, and Aliara carefully watched every person who approached it. "There," she whispered, touching Teysa on the shoulder. "See them?"

A group of a half-dozen dwarves were standing in a loose knot around the door guard. Between them they were manhandling four huge oaken barrels, and their leader was apparently arguing with the giant. It was too far away to hear his words, but eventually the guard extended one massive, stony figure towards a door set in the facade next door. The dwarves hefted the barrels and disappeared through the door. "Delivery," Aliara whispered. "The building must connect in the back. Or they're going straight for storage, which is where we want to go anyways."

"Ok," Teysa replied, "but we don't have anything to deliver. Anyways, we don't know what they're expecting. We can't just show up and say "here's the coal you didn't order."

"Well, we'll keep watching," said Aliara. She shooed away a diminutive merchant with a froggy face who was holding out some crude bronze jewelry. "Go away, you," she said. "We're not interested."

"Beauties for... krooooooaaak... such beautiful maidens!" he insisted. "Finest gold!"

"Not interested, I said!" Aliara snapped. "Push off!" They retreated from his aggressive sales pitch to a small forge where a dwarf was working on horseshoes. Some kind of shoes, anyways-- their odd shape made horses unlikely, unless they had been in a fairly tragic accident. Somewhere behind them, bells tolled: bong, bong, bong, three rings in total. The sound startled Teysa and she looked around wildly for a moment before remembering Jez'ria's words.

They had visited nearly every stall in the area and she was starting to run out of fake compliments when Aliara tugged on her arm. "Look," she whispered. Another small party was approaching the door. This one consisted of a half-dozen women-- two drow, two human, one dwarf, and one species Teysa didn't recognize, with watery blue eyes and glittering scales all up and down her sides. They were all dressed provocatively, with plunging necklines and gowns slit far up the leg. A burst of laughter wafted across the square as they arrived at the door. The guard stepped aside to allow them passage. Teysa caught sight of a vast, smoky room full of firelight and dim movement, then he blocked the door again. "Joy-girls," Aliara whispered. "There's an idea."

At first, Teysa didn't realize what she was saying. Then her lip curled in distaste. "Li, you can't seriously be suggesting..."

"Relax, Tey," Aliara said. "You don't actually have to, ahem, get into character. It'll get us inside, and once we're in there we can ditch the costumes. I mean, it's risky, but have you got another plan?"

"I still like the delivery idea better," Teysa complained. Aliara had never been shy about using her sexuality to get what she wanted. For Teysa's part, she had only recently come to terms with the idea of having a sexuality, and she wasn't sure she liked the idea of throwing it around like this. You could get into trouble that way.