A Good End in Badside Part XXXIX

From: Oliver D. Bernuetz <bernuetz.oliver_at_...> <bernuetz.oliver_at_...>
Date: Sun, 22 Dec 2002 14:46:28 -0000

I stifled a groan and sunk below the surface again. Yes the water was pretty disgustingly dirty but I needed to collect my thoughts. For whatever reason I think better when I'm underwater. What did I know so far? I had two dead followers of Yemalio. One a degenerate asshole who should by all accounts have been kicked out of the cult, the other supposedly so pure that Yelm should have shone out of his arse. They were both here in Pavis ostensibly for the purpose of establishing stronger ties between the Sartar Sun Dome and the two here in Prax. The degenerate was poisoned, then smothered and then stabbed by person or persons unknown. Then after he was dead someone or someones decided to try ornamental carving on his carcass and left the results on display in a butcher's hut in Badside. I do not get this modern art.

The pure one, after announcing the first one's death, supposedly sets off back for the Sartar Sun Dome only to turn up in a cattle pen, sorry cebu pen, crusted in shit with a Black Fang smile to make up for his lack of a more usual one no doubt. So the whole business looks like it has something to do with local factions opposed to closer ties with the Sartar Sun Dome.

Now at the funeral I meet the degenerate's boyfriend, who is also a follower of Yemalio and another fine example of how not to be a Yemalian. He decides to talk and let me know what's been going on. While we're chatting the place we're in is treated to the gentle mercies of a cacodaemon, a beastie most often associated with ogres. We manage to escape death through the timely intervention of a very odd Uroxi. And now, the boyfriend mentions drugs. What next? Free Sartar rebels? Pyramid scheme cultists?

I reluctantly resurfaced to get some more information. Petro had the decency to look sheepish. I shook the water out of my face and said, "Hazia." "Hazia," he affirmed. "User or dealer?" Petro sighed, "Dealer." I sighed and shook my head. "Where? Here or back in the Sun Dome?" Petro snorted disgustedly, "Back home of course. We haven't been here long enough to set up as dealers." He was right to be disgusted with me it was a stupid thing to say. I hazarded a guess, "So you're here to either renegotiate your deal or cut out the middlemen?" Petro grimaced, "Um, cut out the middlemen."

That was the answer that I had been fearing. It certainly explained the stack of bodies. How stupid can some people get? These idiot bright boys thinking they can move in on Pavis and take over the local drug trade from the charming ogres who are presently running it? Bloody foreigners. But it didn't really explain the poisoning or the smothering. Too damn subtle for ogres. They normally deal with incredibly brutal and obvious messages. Mass decapitations, wholesale slaughter, that sort of thing. So this business still wasn't as straightforward as it could be. On top of all the still unanswered questions was one thing. I stared hard at Petro. "So explain something to me. Why are you still alive?"

To be continued.

Oliver