The Phoenix of Altria

by David M Zahn

  "Well, if anyone is home, they know we're here now," Rondo muttered, shaking his head with a small grin. "Guess we ought to follow after her."

  Eldertits charged into the house without waiting for anyone else, which was also typical of her.

  Running up the stairs after her, I called to the fishermen, "Wait here. We'll be right back. And if you run off we know where two of you live."

  Entering the house, I found the remains of the door which shattered apart against the far wall. Only a couple feet away stood a grandfather clock, and on the floor was an elegant but simple rug. Apparently, Mrs. Fisherman's cousin was a fair amount better off.

  "Elaria," I heard Eldertits call from somewhere up on the second floor. "God damn it Elaria, where are you?"

  Off of the front room was a dark hallway which I couldn't see down. After hesitating for a moment, I got out a torch and lit it. This gave Rondo a chance to get ahead of me with his two daggers drawn. Slowly, he crept down the hallway and into one of the rooms beyond.

  Following him, we found an empty dining room and a very nice kitchen, considering the technology available of course.

  "With family that has a place like this, no wonder she is bitter and jealous," Rondo said, turning around and heading back out into the hallway.

  "Not really a good reason to kidnap people and make them disappear though," I replied, following closely after him.

  "Eh, I've seen people do less for worse reasons," Rondo said, entering a living room that was across the hall from the dining room.

  It was well furnished with very comfortable looking furniture and a large staircase leading up to the second floor. It was at this point that I heard a woman scream from the upper floor. Rondo and I bolted for the stairs and scrambled up them as we heard the muffled sounds of a man angrily yelling.

  "How dare you?" I could make out the words as I took the stairs two at a time trying not to accidentally set the house on fire.

  "Calm your tits down," I distinctly heard Eldertits say as I reached the top of the stairs. "I'm looking for another elf and two goblins. Have you seen them?"

  "What? No," the angry masculine voice responded. "Get out of my bedroom and get out of my house."

  "Not until I get some answers," Eldertits replied firmly. "We have reason to believe your cousin kidnapped them. Do you know her whereabouts?"

  After racing down the hallway towards the far door, Rondo and I finally burst in on the room the screaming and shouting were coming from. Inside we found a man and a woman sitting up in bed with the covers pulled up to their necklines to presumably hide their nudity underneath. Eldertits was leaning against the opposite wall glowering at the pair.

  "Oh, for Ilethian's sake," the man snapped as Rondo and I burst into his room. "Did the whole village decide to invite itself into my house. Who the hell are you people?"

  "That doesn't concern you. The only thing that should concern you is telling me where your cousin is," Eldertits said, walking over to the bed and resting her foot on it.

  "Which cousin?" the man asked exasperatedly. "I have like seven of them."

  "Married to a fisherman, works as an assistant seamstress," Eldertits replied, and then, turning to Rondo and I asked, "Did either of you catch her name? I didn't."

  Both of us shook our heads to indicate that we didn't know her name while the man sighed, clearly annoyed, and asked, "Martha?"

  "That very well may be her," Tits said noncommittally.

  "Why should I know where she is?" he asked as I saw the red of his face turn a shade deeper. "I don't keep her. The last I saw her was at the temple for service. If you want to find her, ask her husband."

  "We did ask him," Rondo replied. "He pointed us in your direction."

  Throwing up his arms, the man accidentally knocked the covers off of him and his companion's chest. The latter's breast spilled out, and she hastily attempted to cover herself back up.

  "I always knew he was worthless, but this is a new low, even for him," Martha's cousin muttered more to himself than to us. "Whatever you want, I don't have it. Now for the love of all that's holy, get out of my house."

  Ignoring the murder in his eyes, Eldertits turned to us and asked, "Can we please use some enhanced interrogation techniques? I don't think this dude is going to talk."

  "No Tits, we don't torture people," I replied flatly, "and before you ask, you can't fuck it out of them either."

  "Why would I do that?" Tits replied actually looking offended. "Elaria is missing, ain't nobody got time for that."

  "I think this is a dead end," Rondo said softly. "I'm pretty sure this is just what it looks like, and we've really got to stop walking in on people like this."

  "It helps if we knock instead of kicking down doors," I replied.

  "You kicked down my door?" the man howled in outrage.

  "We tried knocking, and no one answered," Eldertits said shrugging. "We didn't have time to wait for you to finish up."

  As she said this, she motioned to the pair on the bed, and the woman blushed furiously while the man looked like he was about to get out of bed and attack the three of us. Seeing this, Eldertits thudded the butt of her axe down on the ground making sure he could both see it and hear it.

  When he spoke next, his tone was more conciliatory. "I see. Well, I don't know where she is, so please get out of my house and leave us in peace."

  "Breaking and entering, now are we?" a soft feminine voice asked from behind us.

  Spinning around, I saw the irritable innkeeper from the Rose and Thorn walking up behind us.

  "Why are you here?" I asked growing apprehensive.

  "Those three idiots outside didn't pay their tab, so I went looking for them, and it's not a very big town," the innkeeper said. "Of course, when I find them, I also find that they have helped break into a house with three outsiders that are staying at my inn."

  "Well, I guess that makes sense," I said, not quite believing her story.

  I wasn't completely sure what to make of her, but something in the back of my mind definitely didn't like this. As someone who frequented a bar before, it seemed a lot more reasonable of her to just wait for the men to come back and then demand the unpaid money instead of chasing them through the streets, especially when hers was literally the only bar in town.

  "Come now. Let's leave this couple in peace, and then we can talk about what you're going to have to do to fix his door," the innkeeper said, motioning for us to follow her out of the room.

  Going up to her, I gestured for her to go first. There was no way I was going to let this woman get behind me. I'd go down to the street with her, mostly because I think this was a dead end, but I wasn't about to take my eyes off of her.

  After shrugging, she walked ahead of me and down the staircase. I followed after her, and I heard Rondo and Eldertits moving behind me. Cautiously, I stalked her until we reached the entrance room where she stood to the side allowing me to go first. Not a chance in hell.

  "No offense, but after spending enough time in this town, I think I'd rather let you go first," I said, trying not to be too combative.

  "Suit yourself," she said in her normal irritable fashion and walked out the front door.

  Swiftly, I followed her, making sure to keep her at a reasonable distance in case she tried anything. She didn't. After walking down the stairs and leaving enough room for the three of us to exit, she turned around with her hands on her hips.

  "I know Roselake may not be much compared to a large city like Istria, and the Governess asked you to investigate, but that gives you no right to just kick down doors and invade people's homes," she lectured with anger rising in her voice.

  "Well, you see -"

  Tits cut me off. "Our friend, Elaria, and those two goblins were taken," Eldertits said emphatically. "We've got to find them before something happens to them, and that man may know the whereabouts of the people responsible for taking them."

  "Your friend was taken?" the innkeeper asked. "So,
you think that gives you the right to just ignore the law?"

  "Well, no," I muttered, feeling a little bit like a child now.

  "No, it doesn't," she snapped irritably. "Besides, everyone in this town has lost someone they care about at this point, and you don't see them breaking into homes."

  Well, that's probably true in a town of this size with as many people that have gone missing.

  "You haven't done a very good job of finding your people, so when one of ours goes missing, we are doing it our way," Eldertits said, challenging the woman. "I refuse to just sit around while my friend is missing, and if that means I have to break a couple of doors, I have to break a couple of doors."

  "I'll give you that you've got some spunk," the innkeeper said with a bit of a laugh, "but these people have no idea where your friend is."

  "How do you know that?" I asked as what felt like the sting of a bee hit my neck.

  Smacking down at it, I could feel that I had been mistaken. It wasn't an insect at all but something like a dart. Pulling it out, I stared at it, and my vision started to blur.

  "I know that," the woman started, "because we are the ones who took her."

  "Tits, Rondo," I croaked as I felt my legs beginning to buckle underneath me.

  "Really, I was content to let you idiots bumble around, but then that idiot, Rurir, thinking you were a threat, sent you to the home of one of us," the innkeeper said. "So now we had to remove you which is a shame, because it was a lot of fun watching your terrible attempts at conducting an investigation."

  I tried as hard as I could to keep my eyes open and fight against the loss of consciousness threatening to take me, but it was to no avail because it came on swiftly and without mercy.

  An indeterminable amount of time later, I awoke in a large cage with several other people. Eldertits, Rondo, Elaria, and the goblins were all there. The cage was in a large chamber that I was fairly certain was in the underground ruins beneath the village. All around this room were cages with other people.

  Looking over at my allies, I saw that Tits and Rondo were still passed out, but Elaria and the goblins were sitting up and resting against the bars of the cage.

  "Elaria, I'm glad to see you," I said, sitting up and looking the elf over. "Are you alright?"

  "I'm fine," Elaria said calmly. "Well, as fine as I can be after getting drugged and thrown into a cage. Are you alright?"

  "I feel fine," I said, trying to find the spot on my neck that the dart had hit me. "Did you know that our cheerful innkeeper is in on this?"

  "I didn't know that," Elaria responded interested, "I only found out too late that the fisherman's wife and the man she was with knew that we were following them."

  "I'm sorry about that," I said. "I figured the fisherman would be the likely culprit."

  "Why? Because he was a man?" Elaria asked.

  "Well yeah, I guess," I replied a bit chagrined.

  "Men, always overlooking us," Elaria said but then flashed a smirk at me. "They brought our fishermen in a little bit before you. They're in a cage over there."

  Looking over, I saw she was right, and the three fishermen were lying in a cage with a couple of other people.

  "Guess what he said about his wife was true after all," I muttered. "She must really not like him very much if she's willing to lock him up."

  "Have you tried contacting anyone?" I asked thinking we should try to message someone like Viltria and let her know what happened to us.

  "Yeah, and I can't," Elaria said sourly. "I get a notification that the message is blocked no matter who I try to contact. They must have some method of blocking communication out of this place."

  "Shit," I muttered, getting the notification myself as I tried to send a message to the clan. "Guess we'll have to figure out how to break out of here."

  "I've got that covered," Elaria said surprising me. "I'm just waiting for the opportune moment."

  "What's the plan?" I asked intrigued.

  "Wait and see," Elaria said, looking out of the cage. "I don't want to give it away in case they have a way of listening to us."

  "Alright," I replied, trusting her. "I guess these other people are the missing villagers, and I think I see some goblins over there."

  "A lot of the missing villagers, yes, but not all of them," Elaria said. "None of them know where Lilith Franklin and Jackson Tuckett are, but the rest are here. Even the two guards are over there."

  She motioned to the far end of one cage, and sure enough, they were sitting there staring off into space.

  "We'll have to ask Iasz when he wakes up if all of the missing goblins are here," Elaria said, "because I can't speak to them, and I have no idea if they are even from the Keart tribe."

  "That bitch," I heard Eldertits mutter into the ground from somewhere to my left. "She drugs me and didn't even have the decency to take advantage of the situation."

  "Hey Tits, you alright?" I asked as the elven woman sat up.

  "Yeah, I'm fine. I never liked that innkeeper," she said, and then seeing Elaria, she squealed and rushed over to the other elf.

  "Watch the chest, watch the chest," Elaria said trying unsuccessfully to keep the other elf from hugging her.

  When she said this, my eyes were immediately drawn to her cleavage, and I saw the top of a little furry head poke out for a moment before disappearing back underneath her shirt. It was good to know that Elaria kept Minty safe. He was far too cute to be allowed to get hurt.

  "I'm so glad you're alright," Eldertits said, finally releasing the other woman. "I was so worried that they took you and tied you up without involving me."

  "I, uh, appreciate your concern," Elaria said, looking confused by what the other woman said, which was typical. "Honestly, I'm fine, just locked in a cage like the rest of you are now."

  "At least I broke that dude's door first," Eldertits said happily. "And maybe I can break the bars of this cage."

  "That's unlikely," Elaria said in response. "These bars are made out of solid steel. Whoever these people are, they went to a lot of effort to make sure people couldn't break out and couldn't communicate with the outside world."

  Eldertits, ignoring the other woman's warning, tried to break out of the cage by breaking the bars, but it was to no avail. No matter what she tried, it failed to do anything to the cage.

  The one thing it did do was rouse the remainder of our party as well as a few of the other inmates.

  "Jesus Tits, would you keep it down?" Rondo muttered, sitting up. Upon noticing Elaria, he gleeful exclaimed, "Elaria, I'm so glad to see you. Are you alright?"

  "I'm fine, Rondo," Elaria said, smiling over at the tall human, "but your concern is appreciated."

  Iasz and Graard stirred too during this exchange, and soon they were upright.

  "Iasz," I said speaking to the one goblin we could communicate with, "are those your missing goblins?"

  I motioned towards the other goblins. Many of them stared at us, but none spoke until Iasz crawled up to the edge of the cage and began barking something in Goblin at them. After a moment, a couple of them responded, and a shouted conversation between Iasz and the others commenced.

  "They are all here," Iasz finally said, turning back to us. "Congratulations Phoenix, you have located my people, but in doing so, we've all been captured as well. What do you plan to do about this?"

  "Don't worry," I replied sounding much more confident than I felt, "my people are already on it."

  "Oh, really? We have a plan of escape?" Rondo asked, sounding surprised.

  "Yeah, just wait and see," I replied, hoping Elaria knew what she was talking about.

  At this, prisoners in some of the other cages began to murmur. Great, now if Elaria's plan didn't work, I hadn't just lied to my party, but to the whole room as well.

  "If you're escaping, can you please help us out?" one of the fishermen asked.

  "Yes, we'll help everyone out. That's what we've been sent here for," I replied. "It just might take a li
ttle bit of time. None of you were planning on going anywhere, were you?"

  This got one pitiful laugh from Iasz, of all people. Tough crowd. I guess being locked in a cage unable to communicate with the outside world left people feeling pretty humorless.

  "I'm told that Lilith Franklin and Jackson Tuckett aren't here. Do any of you know where they are?" I asked.

  Silence filled the room for a long moment until one of the young men spoke up, "We haven't seen either of them since we got here, and some of us have been down here a long time. Poor Janice and Toby haven't eaten in months. They can barely move."

  Alarmed, I asked, "They haven't fed you?"

  "No, they don't allow anyone to eat or drink," he replied. "Makes us weak, which I suppose suits them since all they seem to want to do is keep us in these cages. The only time we see one of them is when they drop off more prisoners."

  "Have any of them said why they are doing this?" I asked.

  "No, they barely say anything at all, and these are people we have known our whole lives. Mrs. Jameson from the inn and Wilson's wife, Martha, but neither of them will respond when we beg them to let us out or ask them what is going on."

  "I always knew Martha was a miserable bitch," our fisherman said, "but even I didn't think she'd be capable of something like this."

  As if on cue, Martha stepped into the room staring arrogantly down at her husband and said, "Oh Wilson, you'd better believe it. How I've waited for this day. You have no idea. Living with you in that filthy house every day. I thought about killing myself, but seeing you locked up in a cage like a dog has made everything worthwhile."

  "Martha, please don't do this," Wilson replied. "I'm not going to pretend our marriage was a happy one, but I don't deserve this. None of these people deserve this. These are people you know, Martha. How can you do this to them?"

  "I can't stand any of these people," Martha said scowling. "Everyone in this shit hole of a town is worthless, but now many of you are getting the chance to serve the greater good."