Griznuq Gaming

Renee took the key to the establishment. Should the pair not return, Martha will likely starve....

Bum-bum-baaaaaahhhhh

Thanks, Dray, for conducting a fun adventure, and also posting this briefe.

CHAPTER 3 - WHISPER STASH

The morning was passing all too quickly for Temmit, and they hadn’t even started looking for their kidnapped friend yet. He and Renee made the return trip to the Theater District through the storm that they now cursed. Cover was one thing, but the storm now looked bent on slowing them down if not stopping them altogether. Regardless of its effort though, they finally reached the guarded stairwell into LowTown. Due to her connection with Captain Athol, Renee and Temmit were allowed past without questioning.

As soon as they reached the dry passageways of the Storage District of LowTown they broke into a run, taking as little time as they could to reach Renee’s secret room. Happily, took off their heavy cold-weather gear and deposited it unceremoniously on Renee’s granite floor before heading right back out into the hallway.

The Whisper Storage room wasn’t too far away. Renee quickly counted an undisclosed number of granite blocks in the wall and then pushed one in, releasing the catch mechanism of the secret door and revealing the room beyond.

They scurried into the room that was duplicate in size and shape to the secret room they just left behind. Within this room however, was shelves stocked with goods on all three walls. Potions, scroll cases, weapons, armor, devices to disarm traps, ammunition, explosives, and all manner of equipment and paraphernalia that would help Renee start a small war if she so chose.

She quickly abandoned her pack from school and picked up another that appeared packed and ready in the corner.

“A backpack I have prepared for occasions such as these,” she explained to Temmit.

She then quickly showed Temmit a square glass container that was filled with acid. “These are too melt door locks. Expensive to make, but obviously very handy. We’ll take all nine of them, as we won’t know how many doors might need breaking down,” she said as she put four in Temmit’s pack and five into hers.

As they packed things they thought they might need, Renee gave Temmit a quick synopsis of the black market in LowTown.

“Sephlin Cordello, has always enjoyed in the exchange of stories, the power of debate and the gift of new information. Especially of the type that noble people wouldn’t dare speak aloud. The darker, the better. He was a storyteller of, and for, all that was at least perverse, and at most, morally corrupt.”

“Working the docks of the riverfront about twenty years ago, the man was known as the Black Bard[/i]. Tavern after tavern wanted him to perform on their stage, for the man drew incredible crowds with his slick tongue as it spun lavish tales. Tales that shocked the senses of it’s listeners and drew them in for more, even as their skin crawled with the immorality of the stories.”

“It was during this time that he used his charm to gain a most a loyal throng of followers. Men and women who simply began to loyally follow the man as their leader and do his bidding. Amongst them were common rogues and thugs who belonged to a few thieves guilds operating in LowTown. Guilds that had no loyalty to each other and competed to barely make a meager living through dishonest trade inflicted on those above.”

“It was then that Sephlin saw his opportunity. He used his slick tongue and sharp wit and was able to unite the guilds, along with his own followers, to form a united cult with hundreds of followers. But he was smart, because for years he played in the shadows and bid his time while gaining contacts and influence amongst the people who walked above. He did not want to wake the sleeping giant that was the Church of Kaine, until he knew he could beat it. He discontinued his bard heritage and took up the role of Wizard as his sole profession. A profession he excelled in, and advanced farther in then any Wizard I have yet to meet in Safe-Haven. It is my suspicion that Sephlin was the owner of many a wizard spellbook, and spent years of long days and night in study.”

“Anyway...to make a long story short. When the guild became the full fledged black market that it is today, the government tried to shut it down. But by then though, Sephlin had gained in such power and influence in the city that the ability of the government to do something had been robbed of them. He was too powerful and influential a citizen even though 90% of the population above was ignorant of his or even the black markets existence. Wealthy citizens began to get kidnapped or disappear altogether, that along with Sephlin‘s claim that he could use sorcery to blow-up the entire city forced the Church‘s hand, and Fresenius reluctantly had to sign a peace treaty with him. Now, Sephlin is allowed his black market, as long as it doesn‘t infringe upon the daily lives of those above in an excess manner.”

“An entire section of LowTown is under his command, he and his four sons and many wives form the Cordello Family, and they are the Rulers of LowTown.”

(GAME SESSION 3A to be Continued in next post - SEPHLIN CORDELLO)

Beyond the gates was a communal room that exceeded every expectation of what Temmit considered wealth to be.

The massive room’s (80 feet wide by 160 feet long by 60 feet high) floor was completely tiled in black and gold marble. Within the center length of the room was a long swimming pool (30 feet wide by 110 feet long) with crystal clear water. It’s perimeter a short wall of marble blocks that many women and a few men sat upon. Every ten feet on each side of it’s length were ten foot diameter tubs within the floor. Each contained bubbling water that emitted a steam which revealed it’s very warm temperature.

The entire room was lit up by 4 massive cast-iron braziers that were chain-pendant mounted from the lofted ceiling. Cast-iron wall sconces of incredible craftsmanship dotted the buttresses and the walls throughout the rooms as well. Each of their oil-wicks burning a flame to eliminate shadows in the far sides and corners of the room.

The otherwise featureless room was made busy by the massive amount of luxury that had been brought here. Silk pillows rested on dozens of wooden lounges. A half-dozen tables were placed around the room. Each with elegant displays of fruits, nuts and meat within silver trays and bowls resting on clean white linens.

Art work was everywhere. White marble sculptures depicted unknown warriors, nude maidens and the Karh’Thul. Paintings of nobles and their families were stacked vertically and horizontally on all four massive walls about the room, no space was left bare. Tapestries hung pendant-mounted on thick ropes in various locations and elevations about the room. The largest one hung at the room’s center, millions of threads of many colors embroidered in a fine hemp canvas depicting a very picturesque map of the entirety of Safe-Haven .

It was if the entire new museum in the Theater District had been moved here. But of all that splendor, of all that wealth and absolute luxury, what amazed Temmit the most was the people who enjoyed it all.

Using the skills taught to him in the Scribe house, he counted their number in a matter of clicks, 60 people, with women out numbering the men almost 3 to 1. Of these myriad of humans, many were barely clothed. Some were enjoying the pool, others were in the bubbling hot tubs, and a few were enjoying each others company in a fashion that wasn’t becoming to a public room. Temmit couldn’t help but stare at some of the women, for not a soul in the room was unattractive, and to be in a room containing topless women was more than any 15-year old boy should be expected to withstand.

’Nice place.’

(More forthcoming in this chapter)

If heaven was the communal bath house, then Temmit thought that he just entered it’s throne room. For beyond the opening in the silk was a place of such sensual comfort and intoxicating beauty that Temmit feared he would drown just standing aside it.

The silk curtains hanging by the columns hid what was, in affect, a 20-foot diameter bed. The entire floor was actually a soft mattress which felt incredible under his naked toes. Upon it was an array of loose silk sheets, pillows and other comfortable-looking mattresses and things for the tent's occupants to lie upon.

About the room, nine women and one young looking girl talked, lied, and slowly moved about the tent. Each one a perfect specimen of the human species, and each one for all intents and purposes nude. Although they wore some fancy gossamer silks held by forearm, wrist, thigh and ankle bands, the material was decorative in nature and very small. For a boy of 15 who had only seen a woman’s anatomy represented by a sketched cross-sectional view in reproduction class when he was 10, Temmit was way past a mere pounding heart. He sat down quickly to better disguise his apparent pleasure in being in the room amongst them.

The young girl, perhaps his age or a year or two older, interested him intellectually in that he wondered how she came to be here. He did not look up at her though, not trusting his stirring emotions just yet, lest they betray him further. Using his powers of concentration, he quickly regained his faculties as Renee sat down next to him. It was then, and only then, that he saw the one man in the room, who she sat across from. Sephlin Cordello.

Sephlin Cordello was just as muscled as many of his guards throughout his district, but with one distinct difference...Sephlin was a midget. The bald man was studying Renee through her mask and simply smiling at her while he half-lay on the mattress. He wore silks similar to his guards, but his feet were currently bare. He was almost as wide as he was tall, and despite his apparent lack of height, Temmit knew the man was most likely a formidable foe in a fist-to-cuff. Around his waist he did indeed carry a couple of spell component pouches, betraying the Wizard that Renee proclaimed him to be.

Temmit respected this man more and more as he had traveled his domain, and to see the man now only inspired him further to that end. This was not a man to be trifled with. It was then that Renee drew her mask, but as she fixed her hair she turned to Temmit and gave him a signal for him not to follow suit.

“Greetings Sephlin, thank you for hearing the call of my favor,” she said to him. Temmit heard the leader of Whisper throughout the fullness of her voice, and he was proud to feel the strength of it.

“Renee Ol’Steel, welcome to my tent,” Sephlin greeted with a wave to the abode. “Please partake in any refreshments you see throughout the room during your audience with me.”

Temmit dared a short looked about and saw that there were indeed many narrow tables standing at the curtain’s edge of the dais. Each elegantly adorned with food bowls that were similar to the ones in the house bath. He even detected the feint scent of roasted pig beyond the intoxicating scent of woman’s perfume that hung in the air.

It was then that the young girl walked over and kneeled by him while she offered fruit from a bowl to Renee. Her nude form was merely a hand movement away from him and it was more than he could bear not to stare onto every curve and into every crevice of her creamy-skinned body.

Renee grabbed a few slices of apple and then the girl turned to Temmit. With all of his concentration he specifically stared into her eyes lest his own be tempted to wander. Unfortunately for him, this is where her unique beauty truly laid. For the girls incredibly symmetrical face with it’s small chin, soft lips and incredibly big blue eyes were framed delicately by a flowing mane of golden hair. He was stunned by the angelic features.

“No thank you,” he replied to her offer, to which she smiled. A smile that shot a lance down the cortex of his being and straight into his privates.

’I got to admit, I am impressed. Your heart is beating a thousand times a tick and yet you sounded almost mature in your denial of her fruit. Your voice didn’t even crack,’ said Smokey. Temmit didn’t have the strength to wonder if he was being picked on by his pet rock or not, in fact, at the moment he didn’t care.

He returned his attention to the conversation between Renee and Sephlin.

“...a delight to see you here in my humble quarters once again Renee. I am almost tempted to allow you to keep the ring just so we can have this opportunity again and again,” Sephlin stated. Despite these words however, he slowly slipped the signet ring off of Renee’s offered finger.

“Now tell me love, what is so important that you must call in this incredible favor? Why are you here in this lovely little leather get-up when you should be in uniform at the school, leaning over some book?” he asked.

One of the other women then sat down next to Temmit and he breathed her scent in deep. The intake was caught though when he felt her hand gently play with a lock of hair on his head. He tried to ignore it, as if his intent focus on the conversation concealed his awareness of her caress.

Renee matched her host’s casual nature and laid down on the pillows aside her. Temmit noted that she actually moved a pillow so her head would be lower than Sephlin’s and therefore she would be looking up at him.

’The girl knows how to play this game, she is assuming a very submissive body stature in order to shift his attitude into more to that of a gracious benefactor,’ he pathed to Smokey.

’Stroking his ego and making him the father figure,’ Smokey replied in agreement.

’Exactly,’

’Wouldn’t surprise me if he ascertained the same thing. He doesn’t strike me as incompetent,’

’Agreed,’

“...so you see, I came down here to get her back.” Renee had been summarizing Leslie’s kidnapping and had just finished at the end of his conversation with Smokey.

“I have no problem pointing you the right direction Renee. His cell is of course one of my own, but I have no reservations telling you which one,” as Sephlin spoke, he edged his short body into Renee’s personal space on the mattress. Their faces were mere inches from one another, and for her part, she didn’t pull away.

When Renee spoke her voice was just as confident, but quieter since he was now so close.

“Directions are more than I need Sephlin, else I wouldn’t have called upon you,” she said and then paused for a moment. This is where Temmit sensed was the forthcoming gamble in her plan to rescue Leslie, and he sensed her anxiety of it for but a click in time.

Then she passed that click and said, “I want to purchase the lease of the cell from right underneath Damien Starke.”

Sephlin thought a moment and then let out a strong chuckle. It was a hearty laughter that even made Temmit want to join in. The man’s persona and emotions were infectious, as if his feelings were an invisible amorphous cloud that radiated about all within the tent. He understood why so many people followed him.

Sephlin regained his composure and turned back to Renee. While in thought, he took the liberty of stroking her upper leg with his strong but stubby fingers. She laid her head back down from where it had been propped up by her hand and allowed him to slowly caress the outside of her thigh while he contemplated. Even as he did so, the woman beside Temmit moved her hand from the lock of his hair and began to massage the back of his neck.

Temmit had already ascertained the etiquette of diplomacy within this chamber, and truth-be-told, he had a hard time arguing with it’s pleasantries during that exact moment.

When Sephlin spoke, Temmit silently cursed him, he wanted the moment to go on for a lot longer.

“I cannot simply give you a cell in my district for the exchange of a favor Renee. You will need a lot more in compensation to me for such a betrayal of my written confidence with another party,” he said to her. His hand left her thigh and cupped her chin as he spoke, he then placed it back on his own thigh as he awaited her response.

“I would never have assumed to insult the graciousness of your favor in such a way my friend,” Renee replied smoothly without raising her head from the pillow. “I also will donate two half-plat mints[/i] now, and two upon the success of my mission when it is complete.”

“I like your style my love, and you must know my mind better than my liking,” he said to her as his hand returned to her face to caress it. “For you must know that Damien and his gang of thugs disrupt my world and therefore displease me, else you would not be so foolish enough to ask my hand in betraying them.”

“A lucky gamble my friend,” Renee replied. “Many wealthy citizens have been robbed by his gang and have even brought the alert level of the Capital City Guard to a higher state. I assumed this would be bad for business in LowTown.”

“You assumed correctly,” Sephlin stated with a furrowed brow. “But I am not pleased by your confidence in my acquiescence, I think a little more sweetening of the deal is required for my taste and benevolence to your plight.”

Renee nodded and smiled slightly, waiting for his proposal.

Sephlin became real daring in his diplomacy. The hand that was caressing her face slid down the side of her breast, stroked the side of her stomach and gently rested on the leather upon her crotch. His forefinger gently massaging the soft leather. After a delay there, and a moment that Temmit knew the man awaited a denial of him, he took his hand away.

Renee had passed his test.

“When you are released from the military at age 24, you shall come straight to me Renee Olsteel. As part of this favor I bestow upon you, you in turn will bestow your presence within my tent for one month as an equal to those now surrounding us with their beauty,” he announced.

’Well...at least it isn’t until six years from now that she has to sleep with shorty, Smokey quipped.

’A lot could happen in six years,’ Temmit replied.

’Agreed,’

“It would be an honor my friend,” replied Renee to Sephlin. The wizard gave a huge smile back at her.

“The honor will be all mine my love,” he whisper back to her. With that, he stood up and with an almost childlike bounce walked over to the slit in the silks. “Cha’karta, please bring me a new lease agreement for cell 4A,” he told the big bronze guardian at the gate who immediately departed.

Sephlin bounced back and sat a little ways away from both of the Whisper members.

For many turns they then had polite conversation on the trivial happenings of the world above, even talking about the weather for awhile. Sephlin was both engaging and particularly funny and Temmit sensed the Bard in him never truly departed his spirit. The woman that massaged his neck left Temmit for her master and was soon hugging the short man from behind, her entire nude form pressed against Sephlin’s backside.

As they talked, Temmit noted the respect for his privacy behind his mask. Sephlin and the very well-spoken women didn’t engage him in conversation and he therefore offered none. Temmit eventually surmised that it was part of the diplomacy of the given situation. Renee had conveyed to Sephlin without words that Temmit’s identity remain secret, and Sephlin had respected that request.

Finally, Cha’Karta returned with the papers and handed them to the master who didn’t even make it to the guard’s waist. Sephlin in turn handed them to Renee along with a gold pen. She signed the bottom line without even hesitating to look at the document.

“Very well love,” Sephlin said as he stood and rolled the parchment up in his hands. “You have purchased the cell for the next two years, please enjoy it and don’t be afraid to return here for some leisure time? Six years is an awfully long time to wait for the warmth of a warrior’s body such as yours.”

Renee didn’t hesitate in playing her part in his game as she stood up to leave. Before standing to her full height she stood on her knees and wrapped the man’s frame in her arms, embracing him tightly.

“Sephlin. Thank you so much for your kindness this day, you have no idea how much it means to me,” she said then she let go of him and cradled his face in her hands. As one hand came down to cup his chin, in the same manner he had hers, she said, “This day will burn brightly in my memory when I return six years from now.”

She then gave him a quick kiss on the mouth and stood up to leave.

Temmit followed, but just before he passed the edge of the silk he dared a look back at the angelic young woman. Through the locks of her golden hair she gave him a powerful knowing smile. The image of her burned into his memory permanently.

(To be Continued in GAME SESSION 3B - A STOLEN SPY)