Work Text:
"What are you doing?"
Sal cringed as the question rang out, delivered in a perfectly pleasant voice viciously sharpened by annoyance.
"Stop flinching! I'm not going to hit you!"
Sal said, "You said that last time—"
With a sharp crack, Boram whacked her pipe against his head.
"Zarys!" Sal yipped, skipping back and looking to his boss for help.
"She's your superior," Zarys said blandly.
"But I've been here longer than her!"
"And yet, out of the two of you, you haven't learned how to dodge. Boram, what do you know about bone dust?"
"It's white," Boram said.
No it wasn't. It was an organic, pinkish color, right? Right? Or…maybe not? No, it was, Sal had personally ground dozens of pounds of bones and seen the outcome. But maybe high quality stuff, maybe that was white..?
Zarys said, "No. How about cattle tongue?'
"Not like human tongues!"
"Thought so. Right, lads. Settle in for your assignments."
Sal sat sullenly between Vol and Finnley, arms crossed as Zarys split the caravan into smaller teams. Another run, this time to Waterdeep, another day of delivering a package they didn't know the contents of. There was a lot of "not knowing" in the Zhentarim, more than he'd expected when he signed his contract, and lately he'd been wondering how much of their discreet services were actually illegal services.
He didn't know. If he knew, he might tell someone. A few months after he started, a driver by the name of Kent joked to a Fist that their cargo might be worth more than they declared. Last Sal saw of her, Rugan had been smoothly explaining that he'd never seen the packages in her cart, and look here, saer, nothing on the purchase order about it, and what a shame when hires take advantage of the trust the caravan had, and take her away, saer, serve justice saer, have her hanged for this, saer.
And Boram, well, she'd fit right in, hadn't she? Clever enough to fawn and snark with Zarys, smooth enough to keep Rugan and Finnley under her heel, witty enough with the rest that backstabbing her would make their runs worse, sharp enough to know when to lose at cards or when to deliver a hit with her pipe.
Management material, honestly. The only reason she wasn't running this place was her inability to close—Boram thought she could turn anything into an asset. Unlike Zarys, who knew when to cut someone loose.
Boram and Rugan glanced at him, caught him staring. Rugan preened, Boram smirked. Two glamourous people, able to talk their way out of anything. Zarys would put them on delivery, certainly, on the face side of it. Schmooze with the client in the warm, share a drink, secure the next delivery, while the rest of them unloaded heavy boxes in the yard. Amazing how life was easier when you were beautiful.
"—with Boram," Zarys finished, looking at Sal.
"Tough luck, Princess," Rugan said.
"I can handle him," Boram shrugged.
"Not the luck I was talking about. How are you going to survive without me?"
"Better than you without me," she snorted.
Sal stood with the rest, then hurried over to Boram, trying to seem like he knew what was going on.
"Get changed," Boram said. "Or do you usually wear your leathers for this?"
"He's never done face before," Rugan said.
"Face?" Sal squeaked.
"Seems Zarys found my assessment of components lacking," Boram said. "We will be trading product for product. You are on face, with me, to assess how it looks."
Thankfully his next encounter with Boram wasn't until they arrived at the tavern where they were to close the deal. Sal showed early, propped himself outside the door to roll a smoke and nearly jumped out of his skin when a cloaked figure next to him pulled out the pipe of his nightmares. Clove-smoke floating around her, Boram cast a critical eye over him and said, "Sit. I'm fixing your hair."
"Already combed it," Sal said, but he sat, anyway. Even slouched to make it easier for her to reach.
She smacked the side of his head. "Sit up straight."
"You don't need to hit!"
"Ha! Better than what I got. My madame had a hairpin. Used to prick me, right here—" One brutally manicured finger jabbed him in the ribs. He jumped. "A slap is kind."
Quickly, she gathered back some of his hair, pulling it off his neck and tsk'ing under her breath. A quick braid and a painful twist and suddenly he could see how sloppy his brush job had been.
Another slap. "Sit up straight. Have some respect for yourself."
"Stop hitting me—"
"Then hit me back, if you don't like it. Get angry, Salazon. No one else will be angry for you, not until you are angry for yourself."
Sal stammered. He couldn't hit her! She was half his size, for starters!
"Apt-chpt-dypt-ptch—" Boram mimicked his sputtering, finishing it with a raspberry. "That is why you slouch. You have no spine."
"I have scoliosis."
Another jab in his side. Daringly, he swung at her, more a wave than a backhand. She snorted and jabbed him again. "You will stand up for yourself. If you are embarrassed to be with yourself, then how should I be? Embarrassed, too. The client is a shark. If they think we are ashamed of ourselves they will use that."
"You're projecting."
"And you are slouching! Now get up. Let's go".
She waved her pipe menacingly at him. He stood as tall as he could, back creaking.
Inside was wall-to-wall people. About 1500 lbs of muscle and 5bs of brain, split across 7 bodies, filled the table that Zarys bribed the keep to hold.
"What are you doing?" Boram chided the sitters.
"Fuck off," said the one who seemed to have the most amount of brains.
"This is our table. Salazon. Tell them."
"Right, er, you see, the tavern keep was s-supposed to…supposed to hold…" The one who had the wolf's share of the bulk stood. Sal gulped, "Bugger."
"Good! That's one who sees reason!" Boram said as The Wall rounded on Sal. "Now you, come on. Get up. Go, make something of your life. Make your parents proud."
"I don't want any trouble," Sal stammered. "We reserved this table, is all. Ask the bar keep, ask the keep and—"
"—there is a farmer growing the food you need to survive, you know. Instead of skulking around in a tavern, you should go find them and apologize—"
Sal pulled his sawed off staff and shook it, his homebrewed runes on it shorting as they touched his new ring. Bugger, a conflict of magics. Hopefully he survived the fight so he could study it!
And Boram said, "Bet the gods pray you won't show up at their alter. Lowering the value of the offerings just with your presence."
The staff sparked and flashed heat. Sal dropped it. Raised his hands as the Wall slowly back Sal into the corner and held up a fist big as Sal's head.
"Not the nose," Sal squeaked. "I'm a bleeder.
A voice laughed, hard, and said, "Broad's got a point, Marl. We do have to leave you outside the temples."
"On account of the smell?" Boram suggested.
"Hells, you do need a shower."
More laughter filled the air, then, "Oi! Babyface Betty! Get over here, we're moving out!"
Slowly The Wall turned and plodded off, revealing Boram seated alone at the table.
She smiled. "See? It's not so hard."
"You just insulted them!"
"They thought it was funny."
"I can't say that. I'm not pretty, like you. They'd beat the shit out of me!"
"Pah. Even pretty gets beat. Would you rather take a kick or lick the boot that's doing it?"
"Neither!"
"People will never give you respect."
"I know," Sal sighed. "I have to earn it."
She hit him again. "You have to take it!"
On the client's arrival, Sal ended up sandwiched opposite of Boram, between a self-important teenaged spare heir and some advisor who was too young, too pretty and far better dressed than everyone else.
Boram had it worse, though.
She chatted with the client, the kind of sloppy, middle aged ego who had enough power she didn't have to care how she looked, and hadn't even bothered putting on a clean shirt. One greasy plait snaked over her shoulder. Crumbs were tangled in the tail.
On the other side of Boram, caging her in, the client's apprentice, a man nearly as tall as the client, dressed in the same too-casual and poorly fitted clothes, uncomfortably quiet and smiling too much. Plate after plate arrived at the table, Boram wise enough to only sample while Sal dove into the first one and regretted it by the fourth.
"—certain discretion," the client said, leering at Boram.
"You know we're good for it!" Boram laughed the beautiful, chiming laugh of commerce, not the throaty chuckle she used around the fire at night. "You paid extra for it."
The whole table roared.
Sal shifted uncomfortably. Extra. Yes. So no receipt. No purchase order. Nothing but his own brain to remember the exchange: 30lbs of bone powder, 3lbs of stormchar, 5 first edition copies of Lorroakan's Logistical Spellworks and Rituals, 10 5oz bottles of umber hulk blood, 21 2oz bottles of chrysolite powder, 16 3oz bottles of giant slug bile and 5ft of strung eye of newt, in exchange for 60 crystal bottles of Indigo Smoke, 200lbs of red-veined sheep bloomy, 2 6oz vials of saffron and 6 2oz vials of vanilla.
By Mystra's backache, let him have remembered that correctly!
Finally, finally, the client pulled out the goods. All things considered, not a huge amount of product. Sal checked the bonepowder for color, flipped through the books to confirm they weren't other books with the same cover, examined each eye, then got to work on the vials.
"You're short," he said. "21 bottles of chrysolite powder, not 20."
"20," the spare heir insisted.
"Nay. Spells using chrysolite require multiples of three ounces, minimum. When you have it packaged on twos you sell it as sixes or twelves, so Zarys would've ordered it where we could break down the packaging. Twenty-one breaks into seven threes. Twenty does not."
"Besides," Boram pointed out, "There is a gap in the box. You expect me to believe this was shipped across the country with no padding there?"
While Boram negotiated a new price for the missing bottle, Sal pulled out his papers and vials and got to testing purity.
"You really got to do that?" said the apprentice.
"Aye," Sal said.
"Takes forever," sighed the advisor.
"Aye."
"Doesn't trust us," said the client.
"Nay, you know that type," said the apprentice.
Sal grit his teeth and carefully dipped the paper.
"Goes slow," the apprentice said. "Makes it seem harder than it is."
He balanced it over the rune and moved onto the next one.
"Can't fault him," said the advisor. "Likely the only thing he's good at."
Cheeks burning with humiliation, Sal glanced at Boram. She looked pissed. Not surprising, she seemed to always be in a state of bitey or drunk, but she glared at Sal like if he didn't do something she was going to make him regret it. As if he didn't have enough regrets!
Sal slammed his hand on the table. "Umber hulk blood—" He unscrewed the top and dashed some in a cup. "—stormchar—" Also into the cup. "—giant slug bile—" He held it over the cup, waiting for the viscous mucous to drip. "Mix it all together and what do you have?"
"A mess," said the advisor.
"If they're pure. But if they're even a bit contaminated—cut, say, with human blood or charcoal or regular slug bile, by a greedy merchant who is only good at cheating their clients—then we make an explosive. See, I like explosives. I like them a lot. Can make explosives out of nothing but the contents of a pantry."
Boram grinned. A long drip of bile dangled over the cup.
Sal grinned, too, a part of him hoping he could blow this whole place up. "So. How about it? Want to see if it goes bang?"
"Do it," shrugged the client.
"No!" yelped the apprentice, ducking.
Sal caught the drop. "So it isn't pure."
The client growled, "What are you cutting my product with?!"
"For an extra coin on each test, Salazon could tell you," Boram said. "And a price adjustment, of course."
"—but the real star of the show was Salazon!" Boram exclaimed as she dropped into his lap. The other Zhents ooh'd and looked to Rugan, who drank his beer far too casually. She squished Sal's face. "You finally grew a spine."
"Nay, just got stuck between some idiots and a hag," Sal said. "And you were scarier."
Boram raised her pipe, but he caught it and lightly whacked her instead. She laughed that tinkling laugh, then added under her breath, "We are very close to having a problem."
"Sorry," he murmured back, glancing around. His eyes settled on a skinny little twit at the bar who seemed small and scared and beatable. Quite bravely Sal said, "Oi, you. Move. The lady needs a seat!"
The Twit whirled around, revealing a whole lot of crazy in their eyes, and as they lunged Salazon remembered why he didn't talk to strangers.
Vol's fist sent them staggering. They snarled and pulled a knife.
"Oh, hello, friendo. Bit of advice. You fuck with one of us—" Brem shouted.
"—you fuck with us all," Garias said, looming over them all.
As one, every Zhent—from Zarias to Boram—pulled a weapon. Boram winked at Sal.
He ducked under the table. He had scoliosis, after all.