The Secret History of a Warforged (D&D Eberron SI) - Complete

by xxJevranxx

This is a story set in the greatest D&D world of all time, also known as Eberron. As you may know, the powers-that-be released the Wayfinders Guide to Eberron recently, and I managed to find a copy and start a campaign with some friends. This story is written in celebration of this momentous event. I hope you enjoy it.

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The Secret History of a Warforged (D&D SI)

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This is a story set in the greatest D&D world of all time, also known as Eberron. As you may know, the powers-that-be released the Wayfinders Guide to Eberron recently, and I managed to find a copy and start a campaign with some friends. This story is written in celebration of this momentous event.

I hope you enjoy it.

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Chapter 1

Sharn, the City of Towers, was beautiful at night.

And it was an artificial beauty, because it was impossible to see the sky or stars from where we were.

The thousands of little lanterns dotting the giant towers more than made up for it however. Sharn at night was like the Festival of Light I once saw back in Aundair, except that here it was held everyday.

The five of us trooped down the road that was lit by the glow of the everbright lanterns despite the late hour.

We stopped in front of a oak-wood door with a cheery sign of a mug of beer hanging just above the door frame. The closed window next to the door cast a square of warm yellow light in to the dark street through it's tinted windows, and we could hear the sound of cheery music and laughter coming from the inside.

I nodded to my right hand companion, "Do it!"

The massive Warforged shoulder slammed the door, the thick wood splintering like plasterboard and caving inwards.

My companion was propelled inwards, and the rest of us followed in his wake.

All activity inside the inn had stopped when we had smashed in the door.

The music had cut off, the waitresses had stopped dead in their tracks, and the barkeep was hiding behind the bar.

The patrons, a mix of humans, half-elves and halflings with the rare gnome, were all staring at us from their tables, their drinks forgotten.

I moved to pacify the situation before a full fledged fight could erupt, "Don't panic gentle folk! We're just here to have a word with the manager of this fine establishment! Please go about your business! And please! Don't stop the music on our account!"

I gestured towards the band that had been playing when we arrived, and they hesitantly started up again.

I started walking towards the bar, where I knew one of the two doors behind the counter led to a small office, "No need to see us through. We know the way."

I patted the crouching barkeep on the head in passing as the five of us went into the office.

Only it was empty.

I carefully glanced around the room. Desk, strongbox nailed to the wall, bookshelf stuffed with files and a painting on the wall.

Not many places to hide.

"Bloody find him!" I commanded and my companions leaped into action.

It was less than a second before a struggling halfling was pulled out from under the desk and held up so that his feet dangled off the floor.

"Thank you Bucket," I said. "Turn him this way please."

He obligingly did so, and I sauntered over to the terrified halfling.

"Mr Fleetfoot!" I lay one hand across my chest dramatically. "How could you do this to me?"

"I can explain!" the halfling wailed.

"You were the only one to give me shelter when I first arrived in Sharn! You were the one who helped me to first set up my business! You recommended me to your friends! We were brothers in all but blood!" I spoke right over him. "And now you turn your back on me!"

"I didn't want to! They made me!" Mr Fleetfoot wailed.

Fun fact, halflings in this neighborhood have a very interesting ancestry. They started out as dinosaur riding barbarians who inhabited a land of flat plains and grasslands. Think of a half-size Conan the barbarian or Tarzan of the Apes crossed with the Mongols and you get the idea.

But Mr Fleetfoot had been thoroughly domesticated and as far removed from his barbarian ancestors as it was possible to get.

He was fat, soft, and middle aged. And he looked like he came from the Shire instead of some barbarian nation.

"Mr Fleetfoot, Mr Fleetfoot!" I shook my head mock sadly. "How could you think that a bunch of hobgoblins could muscle us out? You know our prowess. You know how we deal with interlopers. You've seen us do it! And for your information, those hobgoblins have already been shown the error of their ways. But I can't help but wonder," I paused and leaned forwards until my face was touching his. "Did you hope that they will win? Are you tired of our arrangement? Is this your way of breaking it off?"

"No! No! No!" Mr Fleetfoot shook his head rapidly. "I swear that's not it! They made me do it! They forced me! I didn't want to!"

"Well," I said and leaned back. "I guess I believe you Mr Fleetfoot. And because of our history, I'll let you off this once."

The halfling sagged in relief.

At my next words his face dropped again, "But the payment this week is going to reflect the trouble you put me through, and go up a little."

"But…. I've already paid the hobgoblins," he spluttered.

"Well in that case," I laid a hand on my chin in contemplation. "We can take the payment in collateral. You have a beautiful daughter don't you? I'm sure she won't mind working for me to pay off what you owe me?"

"No! No!" the terrified Mr Fleetfoot yelled. "I'll pay you! I'll pay you!"

"Excellent!" I clapped my hands and signaled for Mr Fleetfoot to be set down. "I'm glad we could settle this situation without any undue violence."

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Later, after we had left the inn, one of my companions, Bolt, brought up the issue of the hobgoblins.

"This is the second time the hobgoblins tried to move in on our turf. This won't be the last time."

"I know," I said and glanced at Bolt. "We need to do something about those goblins, and quickly. We worked too hard to build this up to loose it all to a bunch of wannabes."

"Maybe we should pay them a visit? Do something permanent?" Bucket said from my other side. "That should send a message if nothing does."

"Not with the City Watch keeping their eye on us," I said and shook my head. "No, we need a creative solution. Not a bloody one."

"You're the boss, Boss," Bucket said. "But I'd hurry up if I were you. It won't be long before the goblins try again."

"I know," I said. "I'm on it."

"You know," Indigo said from where he had been watching the inn. "When you threatened to take his daughter and make her work for you, did he miss the fact that none of us have the equipment to actually do anything to her?"

"Shut up!"

Innkeepers not paying protection money, hobgoblins moving in on your territory, and a complete inability to have sex. Just another day in the life of a Warforged Crime Boss.

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Chapter 2

Fun fact. Reincarnation is real.

Most people don't know this because they loose their memories when they are reborn.

I was special in that case because I remembered my past life.

I was special in another way.

While most people are born into the world from a mother's womb, I stepped out of a Creation Forge.

I was a Warforged.

Let me explain.

I was born into the world of Eberron. More specifically, the continent of Khorvaire.

Eberron used to be a Dungeons and Dragons roleplaying setting in my last life. But in my second life? It was very real.

Eberron was very different from the average D&D setting.

Because you see, Eberron was modern.

When a mortal from Earth inserts into a D&D world, they can usually rally up some orcs, shack up a beautiful human(female) slave, and carve out a kingdom for themselves like Conan the Barbarian.

That kind of shit didn't fly in Eberron.

In Eberron, you got an apartment, got a job, and paid your taxes.

Because Eberron was not that different from Earth in some ways.

It's what a D&D world would look like if all those adventurers and litches and dragons actually got off their collective asses, went to school, got workforce degrees, and got real jobs.

Mind you, this was not the smartphone and internet kind of modern. This was the nineteen twenties kind of modern.

The modern civilization of Eberron was concentrated into Khorvaire. And Khorvaire had everything.

You don't need to travel across the continent on a fucking horse in Khorvaire. No, you can take the Lightning Rail. A magic train that offers transcontinental travel.

You don't need to send ravens to send messages in Khorvaire. No, you can contact House Sivis and send a magical telegram. Or, if you're rich enough, the a Sending Stone. That's the magical equivalent of the cellphone.

You didn't have aircraft and helicopters. But you did have airships run by House Lyrander. Airships that didn't run on lighter than air gases like those mundane Zeppelins from back home. No, these gained lift by using trapped air and fire elementals.

You even had actual hospitals and a school system that went all the way to the university level.

They even had running water and proper toilets.

Not that I could use them.

You see I was a warforged.

To explain the warforged, you need to learn a bit of history.

A hundred years or so ago, there was a war in Khorvaire.

They called it the Last War. The War to End All Wars.

Sound familiar?

The last was was a continent spanning conflict that went on for a hundred years.

The people of Khorvaire applied their progressive views to war in much the same way they applied them to other fields.

During the war the nations of Khorvaire deployed massive artillery pieces called Siege Wands that could reduce a city to rubble and shake the earth with their barrage. They used airships that could drop magical bombs that could engulf entire towns in flame. They brought in elf and hobgoblin mercenaries to feed the meat grinder of war. And when they proved to be too few, they animated entire armies of the undead and they manufactured thousands of constructs to fight their war for them.

And that was not counting the super weapons like the floating fortresses and whatever it was that took out an entire nation at the end of the war.

That's right. After a hundred years of fighting, something destroyed an entire nation in a massive magical explosion.

That brought everyone to their senses and they got together in a big peace conference called the Treaty of Thronehold and stopped the war.

When the war started, there were five nations on the continent, all united under a High King. When the war ended, the five nations had splintered into the twelve nations. And the continent was devastated.

And that was pretty much all that was achieved.

Except for the creation of the warforged.

You see, when the war began to cost more soldiers than could be easily replaced, the nations started to look for a creative solution for the problem.

A bright young lad called Merrix did a movie universe Tony Stark and created the Eberron version of the artificial intelligence and then stuffed it inside a body made of wood and metal. Thus giving rise to the first warforged.

These warforged were then mass produced using magical devices called Creation Forges and quickly sent to the front.

Of course young Merrix made some noises about how the warforged were a sentient race and that forcing them to fight in a war not their own was slavery, but no one listened to him with the need for fresh soldiers going up by the day.

It wasn't until the Treaty of Thronehold that we were recognized as a sentient race.

And even then, we were an uncomfortable reminder of the war.

Not something people wanted around.

And with the demand for money and man power for the rebuilding effort after the war? No one had the time or the resources to spare to get us properly settled down into our new lives.

They just gave us our freedom and tossed us out into the world.

Naturally most of us got exploited as cheap labor.

Most warforged had a rather… naive outlook on life you see. They were only ever trained to fight. Never given a proper education. And they'd been trained to follow orders.

It was easy to con them into minimum wage jobs.

That's not to say that most of us just lay down and took it.

Sadly, most of the ones that wised up ended up joining a lunatic who called himself the Lord of Blades.

A radical warforged that wanted to enact the Rise of the Machines and purge all fleshy creatures from Eberron.

Since I had my meta memories to draw upon, and didn't want to jump in bed with the warforged version of Hitler, I had a choice.

Lie down and take it. Or bend them over and give it to them.

I choose the later.

My strap-on of choice was crime.

They exploit us? I will exploit them right back.

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I started out small.

I had been in Aundair when the war ended, and quickly found work rebuilding the shattered towns and villages.

The pay was abysmal, and sometimes I had to threaten violence to the foremen to actually get paid. But eventually I saved enough for a Lightning Rail ticket to Sharn.

Before I left though, I recruited my first two friends to my cause.

Bucket and Bolt.

They were warforged workers like me that I carefully persuaded over the course of months to work with me.

We always stuck together. Reporting to the same work sites and sharing the same goal of going to Sharn and finding a new life.

Of course I put the idea in their heads, but it was for a good cause.

During this time I both educated myself and them about the world. I learned to read, and thought them. And we all learned the history of the world and about it's nations and cultures.

You see, warforged are not stupid. They just haven't been educated.

When they get their heads on straight, they are frighteningly smart.

Once we had enough money, we ditched Aundair and went to Sharn. The city of opportunity.

Mr Fleetfoot was nice enough to put us up until we found work.

That was where I started my life as an entrepreneur.

My chosen business was the protection racket.

Sharn was a true metropolis with giant sky scrapers.

The City Watch cannot be everywhere in such a city, and a lot of little business owners got harassed and robbed everyday.

So we offered our services as a neighborhood watch group.

It took some persuading. But eventually we convinced the shopkeepers that it was the best choice.

As time went on, I expanded by hiring two more warforged and dozens of informants.

I also worked on increasing the number of my clients.

All of them were in the same street and it's out-layers, so I inadvertently ended up acquiring a nice little slice of Sharn as my own territory.

I even took a new name to celebrate my success.

Al.

Of course, no one got the reference.

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Chapter 3

The Classy Joint was the local cat house.

It was also owned by yours truly via proxy, if you couldn't tell from the name.

And let me tell you, running a brothel in a D&D world is an exercise in Star Trek level inter species juggling.

You don't know what Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combination means until you've dealt with a dwarf noble wanting to play bdsm games with a hobgoblin dominatrix.

Officially we were employed as security by the madam of the place.

Unofficially I was a silent partner.

We also used it as a headquarters of sorts.

We had a small office in the back that I worked out of, while the other mostly played board games or read from the bookshelf I kept well stocked.

They also entertained themselves from the noises coming from upstairs.

It was a game of sorts, they would guess just what was going on by listening to the noise alone, and then later they would ask the girl responsible if their guess matched reality.

I always took every opportunity to educate my boys.

The cat house gave them a look at the true nature of the races that made up Sharn. The bookshelf let them expand their minds in other ways.

Of course, it was also a constant reminder of what I had lost.

What I was no longer capable of.

But I endured.

But the point was, if someone wanted to see me, they had to come to the Classy Joint.

And that was the case now.

The visitor was a weedy looking man dressed in a drab brown cloak and cap.

He was an inquisitive by trade.

Inquisitive.

That was Eberron speak for private investigator. Someone in the vein of Sherlock Holmes. A man who stalked the misty streets of Victorian London looking for elusive criminals that the police, with their straight laced approach to crime fighting, couldn't catch.

And the best part?

There was an entire dragonmarked house of them.

They were the newest dragonmarked house and had the Mark of Finding.

It was a minor cantrip that helped you find stuff that was missing. But these clever bastards had turned it into a thriving business empire and used that leverage to join a very elite club.

I quite admired them.

So much so that I myself considered it as a career. But ultimately decided against it because I simply didn't have the training for it, and even if I did, I would have to compete against a dragonmarked house.

And that was not an easy thing to do, especially in Sharn, where all twelve houses had a large presense.

This inquisitive however, was obviously not dragonmarked.

I couldn't see a mark on him, and they took every opportunity to show off their marks, and he didn't wear house colors.

So he was a private investigator in the true sense of the word.

He also had a job for me.

"I've been contacted by an interested party," the guy said. "They want a warforged criminal that recently assaulted them brought to justice."

"And you want us to, what? Catch the criminal for you?" I demanded. "Sorry friend, but we're not in that line of business."

"Oh I already know where he is," the inquisitive said. "I just can't go in and confirm it on my own."

"Why not?" I asked on my cue.

He told me.

"Ah," I said. "I can see how that would be a problem."

The lower levels of Sharn were not nice places.

Especially ones in the Dura Quarter.

Especially the ones that were occupied by the newly moved in hobgoblin mafia.

"So you need us to…. Do what exactly?" I asked, playing ignorant.

"I want you to come and guard me during the last stage of my inquiries," the inquisitive said. "Just come with me and guard me for the duration. Once I have set my sight on the criminal, I'll call my employers and they can deal with matters from there."

As expected.

"So you want us to be your bodyguards," I said. "That's not our line of work either friend."

"I know! But you have done it before! And you have a reputation for keeping your word, so I know you will protect me if things go bad. And I'll pay you!" the inquisitive said.

If I had lungs, I would have sighed.

When we were starting out we had done bodyguard work. But it was to make contacts around the city, and we have moved past that.

I said as much to the guy.

He named a price.

I wanted to blink, because the amount offered was ridiculous.

It also said a few things about this guy. Because if he had a client that paid this much for his services, he was good. And for someone working independently in a field where the dragonmakred had pretty much cornered the market, that said a lot.

"What did this warforged do? Assault the king?" I asked.

"Not the king, but someone almost as important," the inquisitive said. "And I'm sorry but I cannot divulge information on my client."

"Well don't you know your corporate speak," I said. "And why don't you just tell your client how to find the criminal and leave it at that? Simple and no risk involved."

"The reward is much more if I pinpoint the location, and actually disable the criminal beforehand," the inquisitive said.

"Ah, greed. That makes perfect sense," I said and thought about it.

This stank of some sort of shifty deal.

But the money was good. And I had cornered the market on warforged crime. I had enough trouble with those damn hobgoblins trying to move in on my turf. I didn't need competition from my own kind.

The best thing to do was to remove them.

And if someone else does the removing for me, all the better.

There was the chance that this guy was using me for some nefarious purpose. And the most likely one was canon-fodder, or meat shields. He wanted us to risk life and limb so he could take cover behind us.

But we were warforged. We were literally made for war. We were veterans of the greatest war this continent ever saw in this age, and there was little that could truly challenge the lot of us together among the criminals of Sharn.

"We'll do it," I said. "And if something goes wrong and we are damaged, you pay for the repairs."

The inquisitive winced, "Deal!"

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Chapter 4

I stared at Rook.

I already had one shifty job with that weedy inquisitive to keep my mind whirling, and now this comes along.

He was a warforged who wore an open trench coat, trousers and hat. His armored chest was left unclothed and plainly visible.

He was the newest member of our little group.

He was also the least experienced.

Case in point.

"So you were going to the tailors to pick up your new coat and met these young ladies," I said and indicated the pair in question. One was a teenager that looked twelve, and the other was also a teenager, only she looked about eighteen. Both were pretty, brown haired and thin. "And you decided to invite them here after they asked you for help?"

"They said they were chasing their dream! They needed a place to stay in the city until they got started," Rook said. "You're always telling us to reach for our dreams. To achieve our potential. To improve ourselves. And to help each other."

"I," I said and stopped. I did say all those things. But I sort of meant other warforged. "Oh forget it! You! Brats! What do you have to say for yourselves?"

Said brats looked at each other.

They did have a certain family resemblance.

I guessed they were sisters.

Eventually, the elder one spoke, "We came to Sharn to achieve our dream. Just like we told Mr Rook. We want to be explorers!"

I metal palm met my metal face.

Of course.

Explorer.

That was Eberron speak for adventurers.

The bad news was that even Eberron had adventurers. No Dungeons and Dragons world was free of their bane.

The good news was that they were called a far more sensible name, explorers, and they actually did a valid job. Namely exploring and mapping out the relatively unknown continents like Xen'drik.

And the other bad news?

Eberron was a pretty modern place.

At least Khorvaire was.

So they had newspapers and there were rumors of a magical radio in development.

One of the most prominent news makers after the war has been the stories of the explorers. And the younger generation absolutely ate up the stories about the explorers and their adventures in savage Xen'drik.

The governments even encouraged it, some not so subtlety. Mostly because it took peoples minds away from the devastation of the Last War, not to mention the rebuilding that was still going on after the war, and focused them on something more positive.

To be more direct, if the people were obsessing over the exploits of sexy explorers in the dark continent, now isn't that a familiar name, then they wont pay as close attention to the fact that they were still paying taxes through their noses to fix the damage done to their kingdoms by the war their own rulers started.

One of the daughters of the local king was actually in the exploring business.

Her adventures featured prominently in the Korranberg Chronicle.

I totally didn't have a scrapbook of her pictures hidden anywhere.

Of course the bad news was that it inspired an entire generation of brats to aspire to be explorers. This resulted in them running away from home and getting into no end of trouble.

Like now.

But I had a plan.

A most cunning plan.

"Well I'm all for people achieving their dreams!" I said in my most cheerful voice. "I'll help you. I'll not only give you a place to stay, but I'll go one step further. I'll help you get the training you need to become true explorers."

"You will?" the younger one asked.

"I will," I promised. "We're all veterans of the last war. We have seen action on a hundred battlefields and have been trained to handle hostile environments. Such training is invaluable for an explorer."

"You'd really do that?" the kid asked again and lit up like a Christmas tree. "Thank you sir! Thank you so much!"

"My pleasure," I said and cackled evilly in my mind. "What are your names again? I didn't get them?"

They introduced themselves and Corry and Mara. Two sisters from Aundair.

I promised them that I'd put them up for part time work in my establishment. And we will arrange for training with one of us in the afternoons.

The training will cover combat, wilderness survival, mountain climbing, swimming, first aid, and more.

It was all part of my cunning plan.

I will board them in a room in the brothel, traumatizing them with the goings on in the rooms right next to them. Maybe I'll also have the girls tell them some horror stories. And when they're nice and traumatized, I'll put them through training from hell. Because I had been truthful when I said that we were veterans.

A week or two of that, and they'll send a tear filled message to their parents via House Sivis, begging for them to come and pick them up.

The last thing I want is for two obviously innocent and naive girls like this to risk life and limb in the wilderness. Both in Xen'drik and the urban wilderness here in Sharn. The next person they run into will not be as nice as us.

I'll also have to have a word with the madam about how the girls were off limits. Pimping out unwilling girls or tricking naive ones into the business was where I drew the line.

Although….

Maybe I can engineer an incident with a man, or something more exotic, to frighten them further.

I'm sure their parents will thank me for returning their kids safely.

Maybe the kids will thank me as well, after a lot of therapy.

It will be my good deed for this week.

Couched in the form of an evil scheme.

Sometimes I surprised myself with my evil genius. I mentally cackled again.

"Er boss? You do know you're laughing out loud?"

"Shut up!"

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Chapter 5

Dura was one of the, quarters, or districts, of Sharn.

But it wasn't like the districts of most cities. Because Sharn wasn't called the city of towers for nothing.

Sharn was built up, instead of down.

The buildings are clusters of giant skyscrapers that are hundreds of stories tall, linked with bridges and walkways. It's quite possible to live your entire life in Sharn and never touch the ground.

The city was divided into levels, with each level at a certain height.

At the very top there is the skyway. These are the mansions of the obscenely wealthy and the lords of the city. And they actually get to see the sky.

Below that were the upper, middle and lower cities. Occupied by the upper class, middle class and lower class respectively.

And those were just the levels above ground.

Below ground there were the Cogs. A maze of ruins and foundations that were both the ruins of old Sharn and the ruins of a much older hobgoblin city below it.

As an aside, that little fact was one reason why the hobgoblins were so intolerable.

There is a movement among them that dares to actually claim that because their ancestors lived here a million years ago, this land was theirs by right.

Infallible logic right there.

Anyway, below the Cogs there were the lava flows.

And no one in their right mind went there.

Sharn was further divided into quarters.

Each quarter was a horizontal section of the city that encompassed all levels of the towers that made up that quarter.

The Dura Quarter was one such district.

Upper Dura is home to well to do merchants, craftsmen, and even some temples and a watch fortress.

Middle Dura had apartments and taverns as well as a market frequented by the working class on account of having affordable goods.

Middle Dura was also where I ran my business.

I had a nice section of the ward as my own territory and had already started making inroads into the upper ward when the trouble with the hobgoblins started.

Said hobgoblins were entrenched in Lower Dura among the criminals classes.

Excuse me, the criminals classes that had no style and no class.

This is where we were going.

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Lower Dura had a watch presence, but most of was concentrated near the entrance to the Sharn docks.

The rest of the ward was pretty much left to the dogs.

Most of it was slums, with the space inside the towers divided into little rooms by makeshift partitions and the poor and destitute made homes there.

In fact, one of my crew, Chopper, had been rescued from Lower Dura.

I maintained contacts in Lower Dura out of necessity, mostly to keep an eye on the docks.

Smuggling goods past the dock officials without bothering to pay the harbor duties was the main source of income for the hobgoblin gangs.

It was risky, but lucrative.

This buisness operated out of several warehouses scattered throughout Lower Dura. The actual warehouse where they kept the goods changed at random, making it very difficult for anyone trying to bust them.

Lucky for us, we had a huge advantage over the Sharn City Watch.

"Where is the warehouse!" Bucket demanded as he held a struggling hobgoblin against a wall by the throat. The hobgoblin's feet dangled a good half a foot off the ground. "Tell me!"

Hobgoblins are tough sons of bitches.

Warforged are tougher.

"Where is the warehouse!" Bucket demanded again.

"Go fuck yourself!" the hobgoblin said helpfully.

I decided it's time to intervene.

"Now now," I said. "There's no need to be rude. Bucket, put him down and make sure he doesn't get away please?"

Bucket did just that before taking a firm grip on the hobgoblin's upper arm.

The hobgoblin responded to this act of descalation by clawing at Bucket with his hands and foot.

It might have given a human deep gauging wounds and led to infection, but it only bounced harmlessly off Bucket's armor plating.

"Oh for the love of the non-existing-warforged-god!" I snapped. "Indigo? Sweetheart? Do your thing!"

On cue, Indigo shed her cloak and stepped forwards.

The hobgoblin stopped struggling and stared at her.

Then he yelled, "What the fuck is that?"

I frowned internally, "What the fuck is what?"

"That freak! What's with her?" the hobgoblin demanded and pointed at Indigo.

"Now now, there will be none of that!" I said very firmly. "Indigo is a lovely young lady who has made a lifestyle choice. You need to respect that."

Indigo was the only one of us who identified as female.

After my education, she had gone to our artificer contact and had a lot of work done on her.

Her hips were wider in proportion to her body, her midriff was slender and trim, and her breastplate had actual, well, breasts.

She had even had a long discussion with me about whether or not she should add artificial hair to her look, but she was bald as the rest of us for now, only using a scarf wrapped around her head for the purpose of head ornament.

And, unlike the rest of us, she wore a figure hugging dress that ended at the knees, with leggings covering the rest of her legs. Her feet were clad in a pair of stylish leather boots.

We all agreed that she was beautiful.

Clearly, the hobgoblin didn't agree.

But indigo calmly gestured to the boys, and they went to work.

Bucket went behind the hobgoblin and held his arms behind his back while Bolt seized the hobgoblin's legs and yanked his pants down, exposing his…. Bits, to the world. Then Bolt held the hobgoblin's legs firmly apart.

Indigo calmly approached and drew out a pair of giant scissors from her bag,

"Now darling," Indigo said, and her voice was feminine, unlike the monotone voices of most Warforged. Even more custom work from the artificer. "This is a little tool cattle herders in the Talanta Plains use on their cattle. Their bulls to be precise. See, they only have the most potent and healthy bulls mate with the cows and bear offspring. It leads to the creation of healthy cattle. So they need to prevent the weak and sickly bulls from sticking it in the cows. Do you know how they do this?"

The hobgoblin wasn't stupid, and got the message immediately. He also went into hysterics.

"That's right darling," Indigo said without a care in the world. "They geld them."

She held up the scissors and worked them a couple of times.

Snip. Snip.

The hobgoblin started bleating like a pig about to be slaughtered.

"Now darling," Indigo said over the racket. "I'm going to ask you a question, and if you don't answer truthfully…...snip! Understood?"

The hobgoblin nodded frantically.

She asked him where the hobgoblins were keeping the smuggled goods.

He told her.

-Page Break-

"Now that that's taken care of, lets do our civic duty and tip off the city watch," I said cheerfully.

"Was it really necessary for me to see that?" the inquisitive asked.

"Of course!" I said and put an arm around his shoulders. "Think of it as a taste of what will happen if you fuck us over."

Indigo waved at him from my other side.

"Meep!"

-Page Break-

Chapter 6

"You're sure that this is it?" I asked, because this place looked like it could support animals, but not people.

After performing our civic duty and turning the city watch loose on the hobgoblin warehouse, we had turned to the job we had been hired for.

The inquisitive had led us through the twisting and turning pathways of Lower Dura towards the place that he said the criminal was hiding, and with the group most likely to hinder our passage too busy dealing with the law, we encountered absolutely no resistance.

Right now we were in the bowels of lower Dura, where the narrow space between two of the giant towers had been converted into a sort of habitable abode by using wooden planks to make a makeshift wall and roof.

If this had been the upper levels, the city watch will come down on this place before you can say, illegal construction.

"The criminal is here sir," the inquisitive assured me. "I tracked them down to this place and they haven't moved since."

"Alright then," I said, and gestured to my posse.

Bucket took the lead, smashing the plank that masqueraded as a door and trowing himself inside.

Bolt was right behind him, and I followed with one hand dragging the inquisitive by the collar.

Inside the building, if it could be called that, heaps of rubbish and debris were scattered about, and the only light came from the holes in the ramshackle roof.

It was really an alley between two impossibly high buildings, and people actually lived in dumps like this.

This was the underbelly of Sharn.

However, this particular dump was devoid of any life except for us.

There was no warforged criminal.

I shook the inquisitive by his collar. "Where is he?"

"Um, that is...well, you see." the inquisitive babbled.

"Where is he?" I shouted and shook him again.

A very very bad feeling was creeping up my metallic spine.

The inquisitive shouted something, and suddenly with a movement I couldn't quite catch, he slipped out of his coat and out of my grasp.

I roared and reached for him again.

He ducked under my fist and reached for his belt.

There was an explosion of smoke that spread rapidly and covered the building, effectively blinding us.

When the smoke cleared and we could see again, the inquisitive was gone.

"Fuck!" I said, summing up the situation quite well.

"Boss!" Indigo shouted. "There are soldiers outside!"

"Fuck!" I said again. "Fall back and barricade the path."

My crew leaped into action, falling back further into the alley and using the piles of refuse and debris to make a crude wall between us the the mouth of the alley.

It could have stopped a child.

Really, this place didn't offer much to make fortifications.

It got worse when I caught a glimpse of our attackers.

They weren't the Sharn City Watch as I had initially assumed.

No, these men were wearing the colors of House Deneith on their black armor.

And Deneith was a fucking dragonmarked house.

House Deneith bore the Mark of Sentinel, and were the preeminent organization for the supply and training of mercenaries on the entire continent.

They weren't just a mercenary company, they were a full on mercenary army. The full membership of House Deneith, if gathered in one place, will actually be the size of a standing army employed by one of the nations.

They were also some of the best trained and equipped forces on the continent.

The elite.

And they had us cornered.

"What the fuck are they doing here?" I asked, mostly of myself. "When did we piss off a dragonmarked house? Or someone who can hire one?"

"We pissed off the wrong human?" Indigo asked as she back away from the alley entrance.

"We don't deal with anyone that powerful," I said as I joined her. "It would cost a fortune to hire these. And no one in our area has even a tenth of what is needed."

"Um, boss?"

We all turned to look at Rook.

"I think they're here for me."

His words didn't make sense.

"Why?" I asked. "What have you done? Break into the palace and bugger the king?"

"No! I," Rook said and shook his head. "It's just that, I might have been less than truthful about my origins, as you might say."

"What?" I asked. "This is not the time for story telling! What didn't you tell us?"

"I was created in a secret Creation Forge under the city by Baron Merrix but I escaped!" Rook said it all in one babble of words.

My jaw dropped.

Baron Merrix d'Cannith was one of the three leaders of House Cannith.

House Cannith had created the warforged, but the Treaty of Thronehold that ended the Last War forbade the creation of more warforged and ordered the Creation Forges dismantled.

Running a Creation Forge today was practically a war crime.

But I knew from my meta knowledge that Baron Merrix considered himself above such laws and ran a secret Creation Forge somewhere in Sharn.

And Rook had been made there and escaped.

And now the House Deneith soldiers had come here for Rook, probably on the baron's orders.

"Fuck me!" I said.

We were about to be royally fucked. And none of us even had the requisite orifices for such abuse.

-Page Break-

Chapter 7

"We need a way to get out of here!" I said.

This was easier said and done.

We were in what was effectively an alley between two very high skyscrapers.

The walls on these things were incredibly thick, and even we didn't have the strength to break through them.

There was no climbing the walls either. Because the walls went straight up and there were no windows until you went really high up.

I halfheartedly looked down, in the movies there was usually a way into the sewers in situations like this. But somehow I didn't think that applied here.

"There is no way out," Bucket said from were he was crouched behind a pile of refuse.

"They're coming," Bolt said from where he was crouched next to Bucket.

"Stop acting like this is a horror mo… play," I said and turned to Indigo. "What about the back entrance?"

"They're moving in from there was well," Indigo said from where she had been checking the back entrance to the alley.

"I don't suppose there is a convenient entrance to the Cogs in this alley?" I asked because if I didn't check, I'd feel like an idiot later.

"No there isn't boss," Chopper said. "You needn't even have asked. That bastard wouldn't have led us to a place that had an exit."

No he wouldn't have.

So I considered the options available for us in this situation.

We cannot leave via the backdoor.

So we can either fight, talk our way out, or surrender.

The fighting thing was a really bad idea.

This was a dragonmarked house. Even worse, this was House Deneith.

House Deneith fielded professional soldiers and they were loaded with weapons and magical artifacts.

And they had us outnumbered.

As in five to one outnumbered.

And they were equipped for a military operation and we were armed for a gang fight.

The difference in equipment alone would put us at an even larger disadvantage.

We could give a good accounting of ourselves and take down a few of them with us if we went all out. But in the end we would be destroyed or disabled, and we couldn't recover from wounds without the help of an artificer. A very expensive artificer.

So, we can safely rule out fighting.

The next option was talking our way out.

We need some kind of leverage, or some offer we can give them for that to work.

And dear Baron Merrix had all the reasons to capture Rook and silence us, just in case Rook had confided in us.

One option was to sacrifice Rook and negotiate our safe passage. We could either hand him over, or threaten to destroy him if they didn't let us pass.

But that might not work for two reasons.

One, if push came to shove, Merrix d'Cannith might prefer Rook destroyed rather than captured. And two, I really didn't want to betray another warforged that way. And I wasn't sure if I could go through with it.

I also might have tried bluffing, but there was nothing to bluff with in this alley, and with Merrix d'Cannith himself not present, I couldn't well threaten to expose him without actually exposing him.

That left surrendering.

It was really the worst option.

Keeping warforged contained was hard, so they might well destroy us if we surrender.

And they were here for Rook because of the secret he carries, and secrets were best kept when the people keeping said secret were silenced.

So, we can't fight, we can't negotiate, and we can't surrender.

We're out of options.

I didn't think my career would end like this, but it had been a good run.

The war had done a pretty good job of numbing my fear of death. It hadn't made me fearless, but rather, more accepting that death was inevitable.

"Boss!"

Besides, death wasn't the end. I knew that now, so I also knew that I might get another incarnation after death. One where I actually had some reproductive organs.

"Boss!"

Who knows, I might actually get one of those harem anime worlds next time?

"BOSS!"

"What?" I spun to face Rook, wondering why my minion was disturbing my harem anime fantasies.

"Look!" Rook pointed and I looked up, right through a hole in the makeshift roof… to where a window could be seen on the side of one of the towers. It was also five stories up.

"Dammit Rook! It's too high up and we can't climb!" I snapped.

"And the soldiers are moving in!" Bucket shouted.

"It's not too high!" Rook shouted right back. "This is my fault. You're in this mess because of me. So I'll save you!"

"Rook, what are….." I cut off as Rook started to glow.

There was white light spilling out from beneath the bronze plates he used to decorate his body.

And I felt myself levitate.

My feet left the ground and I floated.

Around me, I could see the other in a similar state, being lifted up in the air with no visible support.

We smashed right through the roof and went straight up, right until we reached the fifth story window. And from there it was easy to reach out and grab the window ledge and haul ourselves in.

Soon enough, all of us were in the small room that opened up from the window.

All of us except Rook.

He had remained on the ground, and looking down through the window I could see him being swarmed by Deneith soldiers.

"Fuck me!" I said.

I had thought that Rook had a bronze fetish, because he used dozens of decorated bronze metal panels to cover his body.

Now, with my meta knowledge, I could see that he used the bronze to hide the crystals embedded in his body.

Rook was a psiforged.

A psionic warforged.

Who had just sacrificed himself for us.

This keeps getting better and better.

"Boss," Indigo said shaking my shoulder. "We can't stay here!"

"I know," I said and wanted to scream my frustration and rage. "Let's go."

-Page Break-

Chapter 8

"Well," I said when we were finally safe for the moment. We were still in Lower Dura, but in another refuse ridden alley. "This is the deepest shit we have ever been in, and I have been contracted to clean out the sewers in Fairhaven."

"They took Rook," Bucket pointed out the obvious.

"I think," Indigo said, her voice rather sharp. "That we should worry for our own safety before we try to help him!"

"That's easier said that done," I said. "A dragonmarked house is not so easy to hide from."

"Even worse," Indigo said. "We could bribe the Watch to ignore our business. But if it was a choice between protecting us and sucking up to a dragonmarked house, they'll drop us faster than you can say 'We're royally fucked!'."

"So we'll have the City Watch looking for us as well as House Deneith?" Chopper asked.

"Pretty much," I said and went back to looking for a way out for us.

"Rook could have told us," Chopper said. "We could have hidden him better. This wouldn't have happened."

"Spilled milk Chopper," Indigo said. "Spilled milk."

"You're both right in your own ways," I said. "For now, we need to do two things. Hide ourselves properly and gather information."

"Uh, boss?" Bucket said slowly. "We're warforged. We're not exactly easy to hide. People notice us."

I sighed. I really wanted to call him captain obvious, but didn't want to damage morale further.

"Maybe we can retreat into the Cogs?" Indigo asked. "No one can find us there."

Now there's a solution right out of a fantasy novel. You're supposed to be the smart one Indigo.

"Can we flee the city?" Bolt asked. "Start fresh somewhere else?"

"Enough!" I snapped, and they quieted. "In answer to all your questions, I have a plan. I still have cards to play. We're not out of the running yet. So please trust me and follow along, and I swear I will do my best to get us through this safely."

My crew was loyal.

They fell in line without complaint.

The first thing we did was abandon our fancy cloths and panoply, despite loud protests from Indigo. They were simply too eye catching.

Once the cloths were gone, we more or less looked like generic warforged. We further augmented our look by making makeshift hooded cloaks from fabrics we flat out stole from some poor bastards.

Then we waited till sundown and the onset of darkness.

Most of Sharn was well lit by everbright-lanterns during night. But Lower Dura was again different.

There were no lanterns here, so during night time most of the quarter plunged into total darkness, and the streets were almost empty.

That meant that we could move around more or less unimpeded so long as we had a small handheld lantern.

Our destination was a small house built against one of the towers.

We simply went up to the door and pounded on it.

"Open up!" I shouted for good measure.

Eventually the door opened a crack to reveal the face of a scruffy human man in his thirties.

"Hello Corporal," I said with fake cheer. "I'm calling in my favor. Let us in."

-Page Break-

Fitting six warforged in a one room hovel was a core in and of itself, but we managed.

While we were hiding, the corporal went about the series of errands I had given him.

A couple of years ago, I had done him a favor, and now he owed me big time.

I also had no fear of him betraying us, because I had him by the balls.

So we just had to wait patiently in the hovel and pray that something else didn't decide to fuck with us.

It took him most of the day, but he came back with results by the time night fell again.

"You're not wanted by the City Watch," the corporal said.

"What?" I asked. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure," the corporal snapped. "There are no warrants for you. Technically you can walk aroud quite openly."

"Technically?" I asked.

"There is a bounty for you," the corporal informed me cheerfully. "I wouldn't show my face anywhere outside if I was you! Pretty much every mercenary and inquisitive will be out for your blood before the day is out. If I didn't love my life so much I'd have turned you in."

"Fuck!" I snapped.

"I suppose you-know-who wants to keep the details of what's happening quiet," Indigo said.

"Yes, I guess," I said. "But that doesn't help us."

"Can't we go to the Watch ourselves?" Indigo asked. "We're not in the wrong here."

"Not without proof," I said. "Remember who we will be accusing. We're going to need a lot of proof if we take that route."

"So what do we do?" Bucket asked.

"We need to find out more information," I decided. "We're going to track down that inquisitive and find out just where that mission came from. Then we'll have identified who our enemy is. Once we know that we'll know how to respond."

"Don't we already know?" Bucket asked.

"We don't know for sure," Indigo said.

"Besides," I said. "We owe that son of a goblin a lot of payback."

-Page Break-

Chapter 9

Getting back into Middle Dura and keeping out of sight had been a challenge in and of itself, but we managed it with the aid of hooded cloaks, a cabbage cart, and the cover of night.

Our inquisitive turned out to be living in a small apartment tucked away from the busy streets in the more affluent side of Middle Dura.

"We're sure he's in there?" I asked Bucket as we crouched next to a window in the building across the street. "One mistake here and we will get the Watch called on us."

"I saw him boss," Bucket insisted. "He went in the apartment."

"He has no way out without us knowing?" I asked, because we had to be sure.

"Both his office and his apartment are here boss," Bucket said patiently. "He's still inside unless he has a teleport."

"And the other apartments? They're empty?" I asked again, just to make sure.

"As far as we know boss," Bolt said this time. "The apartments on both sides are empty. Don't worry, we checked everything over thrice."

"Alright," I said and sighed. "Prey to whatever god you believe in because we're doing this lads!"

"Ahem!"

"And lass," I corrected. "We'll go in pairs. Now!"

I pulled a featherfall token from my pocket and jumped off the window into the space between the buildings, where the drop was dozens of feet down if I was lucky enough to hit the bridge below when I fell, and thousands of feet down if we're unlucky enough to miss it.

Lucky I had the featherfall token.

Those were pretty much standard fare in Sharn, and were imbued with the featherfall spell.

If you fall off a skybridge with one of these in your pocket, you laugh safely. If you don't have one in your pocket? Well, the towers of Sharn are taller than the tallest skyscraper back on earth.

While falling, I was able to use the momentum from my leap to propel myself towards the window of the apartment across the street.

I crossed the distance just barely before I lost height and managed to grab the window ledge and from there, pull myself into the apartment.

I also smashed in the window frame with my passage, but that was a minor detail.

Within the apartment, I was in a bedroom, which was empty.

I rushed out through the only door in the room and came face to face with a human woman who had been coming to investigate the racket.

She took one look at me, screamed, and turned and ran.

I cursed and followed after her.

Behind me, I heard the rest of my posse enter the apartment by way of the window, but ignored them in favor of catching the fleeing woman.

We both ended up in a living room where the woman dashed for what I assumed was the front door door of the apartment.

Just as she reached it however, the door smashed inwards and slammed into her face, causing her to fall on her ass.

Bucket stood framed in the in the doorway, having landed in the next apartment and made his way over for just such an eventuality.

"Well done Bucket!" I said and gestured to the woman. "Grab her and let's search the apartment."

Of course, our lick didn't hold.

The search of the apartment revealed nothing.

No inquisitive. No other sign of life except for the woman.

And we searched the place quite carefully.

"Where is he?" I demanded of the human woman who sat sullenly on a chair, her arms firmly gripped from behind by Bucket.

"I don't know!" She snapped back at me. "I just do the cleaning! He doesn't tell me where he goes or what he does!"

"Dammit!" I cursed. This chance won't come again, because once he heard about this this the inquisitive will be spooked, and he will run. We'd blown our chance.

"He has to be here boss!" Bolt insisted. "I saw him come in!"

"Well he isn't bloody here now!" I snapped. "I'll check the apartment one last time. See if there is a secret compartment we missed somewhere."

Not that I expected to find anything. The apartment was well appointed, and completely empty. It had a living room, two bedrooms, kitchen, bathroom, and office.

There was also nowhere to open a secret passage to unless you broke through into the next apartment.

Our inquisitive had clearly lived and worked here. The place was piled high with his stuff.

He might also have had a woman living with him? Because there was an absolutely massive pile of makeup on a dresser, and there was a wardrobe full of both male and female cloths.

…..Female cloths of a dozen styles and makes.

I knew that this wasn't normal.

A quick check of the male side of the wardrobe revealed that it too was packed with male clothing of a dozen styles and walks of life.

There were also tiny portraits of humans, elves, half-elves and even orcs of both sexes pasted onto the back of the wardrobe door.

Was the inquisitive into disguise? But there were no wigs, mission impossible masks or other disguise equipment.

He could disguise himself with just cloths unless….. he was a wizard or…..

I spun and walked back to the living room where the woman was still being held by Bucket.

"I think it's a changeling," I said without preamble and the woman jumped. "Only one way to know for sure, we need to kill her!"

The gathered warforged exchanged glances, before Bucket spoke up, "Boss, why does killing her help in this situation?"

"Yes, that is part of my cunning plan," I explained calmly. "If it's the inquisitive he'll reveal himself, because changelings assume their true form in death and if it's not she'll die. Quite simple, no?" The woman was beginning to panic at my words. "Just toss her out the window, and check her for a featherfall token."

"Ah, boss?" Indigo asked. "Don't we need, information? We kind of need her alive?"

"One word darling," I said. "Necromancy! We just need her brain intact for it to work, I think?" The woman was yelling and struggling in Bucket's grasp. "Trust in me, and toss her out the window!"

Bucket exchanged a glance with the others, "You're the boss."

The woman went into hysterics when Bucket picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder and carried her over to the window, making it quite clear that he really was going to toss her out, "Wait! Wait! You don't have to do this! I'll change! I'll change!"

And her flesh rippled and flowed like water, loosing color and taking on the shade of milk.

A moment later, she was in her true form.

-Page Break-

Chapter 10

A changeling is member of a unique race that inhabited Eberron. And they had been on this continent as long as any of the humans. There probably was a changeling in disguise among the first human sailors that landed in Khorvaire.

According to my meta knowledge, they first originated as the result of doppelgangers reproducing with other humanoids, mostly baseline humans. The offspring of these unions proved to be able to pass on their unique traits to their own offspring, and eventually gave rise to a unique species.

The changelings to do not have the full shape-shifting power of a doppelganger. This means that a changeling can only change into bipedal shapes, they cannot change their body shape drastically, and they didn't take on the racial characteristics of the races they shifted into. One huge advantage they had was that their transformation didn't have a time limit like most shape-changing techniques. A changeling could go to sleep in a new form and wake up still in that form. A changeling can be injured and still retain the transformation. The only way a transformation can be broken was in death. A changeling always shifted back to it's true form in death. Also, a changeling's transformation didn't change their cloths, and it didn't give them the memories and mannerisms of the creature they were changing into. The changeling had to do those the normal way.

But within these limitations, a changeling was pretty flexible. They made pretty good infiltrators and spies, and were doing quite well in the inquisitive business. They were also part of the criminal underworld, but the changelings that were outright criminals kept very quiet and didn't make loud noises like us or the hobgoblins.

Meeting a changeling was quite rare, because they rarely showed their true faces. They assumed the identities of members of the other races, and they lived as those assumed identities, sometimes for years on end.

As a matter of fact, this was my first changeling.

"So," I said as I faced the changeling who was held quite firmly in Bucket's grip. "I assume that you don't want to take the scenic route down?"

She shook her head.

"Then start talking! Tell us who hired you and what you were ordered to do!" I demaned.

"But! But!" the changeling babbled. "They'll kill me! You can't turn on someone like that and live!"

"You. Are. A. Changeling," I said word by word, doing my best to hold my anger in. "You can go anywhere and restart your life."

"Not with these people," the changeling said. "You don't know them. They can find even a changeling."

"Neither do I care," I said, finally abandoning diplomacy. "You spill, or we spill you. At least this way, you get a head start when you go on the run."

"And seeing as you kind of ruined our lives, we don't particularly care what happens to you," Indigo put in from where she was raiding the changeling's closet.

The changeling looked physically pained at the sight.

"Hey!" I snapped, getting her attention back. "Focus! You have about five seconds to make your choice before we go with the necromancy option."

I watched as the changeling thought about it. Not that there was much to think about between certain death and a fighting chance. I had a very carefully cultivated reputation in Sharn, nothing that could be proven in a court of law, but if she had done any research on me, she would know I was quite serious about the death threat.

"You'll let me go after?" the changeling finally asked.

"Yes," I said. "We will go our separate ways."

"Very well," the changeling said and sighed. "I was hired anonymously, but I did some checking and found out that my employer was Baron Merrix d'Cannith."

"And there we have it, out of the horses mouth," I said. "Why did he hire you? What recommended you for the job?"

"I've worked for the Cannith before," the changeling explained. "I tracked down missing members after the war and retrieved lost schema. So when one approached me with their identity concealed for a similar job, it wasn't hard to make the connection."

"That's quite sloppy of him." I said. "I was given to understand that the baron is a very careful man. But I suppose everyone makes mistakes, especially little ones. So what exactly was your mission?"

"I was hired to find a specific warforged," the changeling said. "I was shown a drawing and given a description."

"You found him from just that?" I demanded. "If you managed that, in a city this large, you must be Sherlock Fucking Holmes!"

"Who?" the changeling asked.

"A super inquisitive from…. Cyre. Tragic end," I waved my hand. "Keep talking! How did you find him?"

"It wasn't easy. Especially with him covering up those crystals on him. But my employer helped me, they sent me a new hire from Sarlona who was able to use some sort of magic to pinpoint his general location. Not continuously, but occasionally."

A person from Sarlona? And they helped find a psiforged? Through some magic trick? There was only one explanation that made sense.

"He was practicing in secret, and they could sense it," I said. "That idiot."

"Practicing what?" the changeling demanded.

"None of your business," I said. "Well we know who our enemy is. But we also don't have any information that will actually help us."

"Rook really fucked us over boss," Indigo said from where she was busy stuffing dresses into a sack.

"We'll deal with that when we get him back," I said and clapped my hands. "Alright! Lets pack it up! Grab anything useful and stuff the changeling in a sack or something, we're taking her with us."

"What? You said you'll let me go!" the changeling yelled and started struggling again.

"I lied."

-Page Break-

Chapter 11

We had retreated to an abandoned apartment in Middle Dura. A place that we knew from our regular scouting that was empty and well away from both the patrol routes of the City Watch and the commonly traveled sky bridges.

"Alright team!" I announced to my posse. "Listen up! It's time. We have the information. We know what we're up against. Now we need to come up with a plan of action."

The changeling raised her hand.

"Yes?" I asked.

"I'm here against my will?" the changeling asked with her hand still up.

"And?" I asked.

"Um, not a member of your team is what I'm saying?" she said tentatively.

"Oh not a problem," I said cheerfully. "You're conscripted!"

"Conscripted?" she demanded.

"Conscripted," I nodded.

"But, but!" she spluttered. "The war is over you idiot! That sort of thing isn't done anymore!"

"There are still a lot of us who haven't managed to escape it's shadow," I said even as I shook my head sadly. "It will probably haunt us forever!"

She spluttered.

"Of course, as a conscript, you'll be given the standard pay" I said and her face started to light up. "Two copper pennies a week and a pair of boots!"

She howled and leaped for my throat before being pulled back by Bolt.

"Seriously boss?" Bolt demanded.

"Oh give me a break," I snapped. "Besides, we really will pay her if she does a good job. And no not in copper pennies, actual gold."

the changeling glared at me.

"Besides," I said wearily. "We're also saving her life by doing this. She's a loose end. Merrix won't leave her alive to tell anyone just what she did for him. It's not that hard to connect the dots."

the changeling was still glaring.

"Don't play stupid now," I said. "You must be smart to hold down a job like yours. So you must have at least some idea of why the dear baron wanted that warforged. And if you deduced that, then you know that leaving loose ends is not something he'll do in this situation."

"You don't know that!" the changeling snapped.

"His mission has gone tits up, at least partially. We got his escapee, but he had friends that he might have confided in. Friends who might know his secret. What do you think is going to happen?"

She looked at her boots.

"Good! Now that that's settled, we need a plan," I looked around at my posse. "Any ideas?"

The crew exchanged glances.

"We need to save Rook," Chopper said.

"Obviously," Indigo said. "But we also need a way to keep the baron off our back, permanently. Because even if we recuse Rook, the baron can have us all killed at a later date."

"That's easy," Bolt said. "We threaten to expose him if he harms any of us."

"You've said that before," I put in. "But we need some rock solid proof if we're to do that."

"What if we find his, you know," Bucket gestured. "The thing."

"The Creation Forge?" Chopper asked, quite casually mentioning the dragon in the living room.

The changeling whimpered.

"You know," Indigo said. "That's probably where Rook would be too. If we found that, we can call the Watch like the civic minded citizens we are, the baron would be ruined, and we would be free."

That's my girl.

I'm proud of her.

Of course, I'm also proud of myself, considering I thought her.

"That's one plan that will work," I admitted. "But that'll involve finding Baron Merrix d'Cannith's secret Creation Forge." The changeling whimpered again. "And you can bet your metallic ass that it'll have military grade security. The kind of shit even we will have trouble with."

"We might not have a choice boss," Indigo said.

"I know," I admitted and finally gave in. "We'll end up doing it anyway, or making the attempt. But where do we even start?"

"Um," the changeling tentatively spoke up again. "The baron would know. He's the only one who would know for sure right?"

"Yes," Indigo said. "But what do we do? Follow him till he goes to his secret base?"

"It's a thought," I said. "Good one conscript!"

"My name is…" the changeling started to say and stopped herself. "You know what? Call me Conscript. It's as good a name as any."

"Right you are Conny," I said cheerfully and she glared. "So we start on the baron as soon as we have our gear? All in agreement?"

There were nods all around.

A moment later, Bucket, who had been on lookout, gave a hand signal.

"And here comes our gear," I said, and five minutes later there was a knock on the door.

After Indigo opened it, the two human girls, Mara and Corry, marched in, each carrying a heavy backpack.

"Well done girls," I praised them as they laid the packs on the ground and we helped ourselves to the things inside. "Did you have any trouble?"

"No boss! We gave everyone the slip! Those damn hobgoblins and watch dogs never caught a whiff of us!" Mara reported. She even put on a gangster accent.

So cute!

"Anyway," I said and focused. "Let's get our tools and get cracking. Girls? As we have trouble with covert work, a huge chunk of this will have to be done by you. But we'll keep risk to minimum okay?"

Both girls nodded.

"Now here's the plan…..." I said and cut off. "What's that noise?"

The door of the apartment and both the windows exploded inwards at the same moment, black clad figured leaping through the derbies and landing in fighting crouches.

The sound of smashing wood and glass and feminine screams filled the small apartment.

When the ruckus was over, we found ourselves surrounded by a posse of humans and half-elves. All clad in black armor and wearing the insignia of…

"The fucking army?" I demanded. "Are you fucking kidding me?"

-Page Break-

Chapter 12

At second glance, I saw that it really wasn't the army.

No. It was a lot worse.

These assholes wore the badges of the King's Citadel.

Let me explain.

Just the army would have been bad enough.

Because the Brelish army was both well trained and equipped, and they were second only the Karranath Royal Army. This I knew from experience.

And these guys were the elite of the Brelish military.

The King's Citadel was an organization that served trained and deployed the elite forces of the Kingdom of Breland.

They were the FBI, CIA, Seal Team Six, and the Secret Service all in one.

Quite literally in fact.

The Citadel was broken into a number of chambers. The King's Swords, an elite team of warriors that were deployed for behind the enemy lines type of missions. The King's Shields, that did protection duty for VIP's. The King's Dark Lanterns that were super spies right out of an action movie. And finally the King's Wands, elite wizards with license to polymorph.

An they were in our hideout.

"Okay," I said calmly. "Let's all take a deep breath and calm down. Metaphorically in our case."

I wanted to diffuse this situation.

Because fighting the citadel was a bad idea. And even if we won, that was a guaranteed method of making us wanted across the entire kingdom.

But before this very sensible plan could commence, Mara, the younger of the two girls, screamed and opened fire with a wand she had been concealing up her voluminous sleeve.

And all hell, excuse me Kyber, broke loose.

-Page Break-

Bucket leaped forward his arms extended in a wrestlers pose, grabbed a human citadel agent, lifted him bodily, and hurled him at another agent.

This agent, a half elf, dodged in an inhumanly quick move, and the poor human projectile flew above his head and went right through the smashed window and plummeted into the street below, screaming all the while.

Meanwhile, the half elf fired green magic at Bucket from his crouched position, and Bucket was blasted backwards and slammed into the wall opposite where he collapsed in a heap and green tendrils of magic materialized and held him completely immobilized.

Bolt roared and swung the large table that had been in the middle of the room in a golf swing and caught the half elf full in the side.

The half elf screamed and flew across the room to slam into another wall and collapsed, one of his arms and legs bent at unnatural angels.

Indigo hurled a trio of daggers and nailed one of the citadel agents who collapsed gurgling, before raising her forearms and using her built in armor to block a sword from another agent.

Corry, the older girl, also brandished a wand and cast Light. A simple cantrip, but she cast it on the inside lining of a citadel agent's hood. The bright light emanating from less than an inch from his eyes effectively blinded the agent, allowing Chopper to get close enough to seize his arm and twist just so, driving his own blade into his guts.

The changeling did the smart thing and attempted to flee, only to have another agent grab her and try to restrain her. She screamed hysterically and trashed in his grip, flailing her arms and legs.

Our final member, Rain, used the crossbow built into his arm to unleash a flurry of bolts into the ranks of the citadel agents, which one of the agents blocked with a hastily conjured shield.

I cursed and leaped forward, drawing the sword I always kept concealed on my person and engaging another half elf agent.

The moment our blades crossed I activated a hidden weapon built into the wrist of my sword arm and spat a stream of acid into the agents face. Focused on blocking my sword, the acid caught the half elf full across her face.

With a flick of my wrist, I severed the half elf's sword hand.

Then someone cast Fog Cloud in the room, and for the next few seconds the only sounds in the apartment were screams, grunts and clangs.

When the fog cleared all of my crew except for me were either unconscious or magically incapacitated. And the changeling was busy biting the arm of the citadel agent that held her.

I cursed and dropped my sword.

"Well shit," I said and raised my arms. "So ends the career of the great Al of the Warforged."

Sometimes I really wish the Warforged had a god.

-Page Break-

Chapter 13

"Well boss," Indigo said as we all sat in our cell. "This is the worst pickle we've ever been in."

"I don't know," Bucket said from where he sat. "I think that time when the visiting noble sent those thugs after us because the boss told his wife where he spent the night counts. They had hammers." You needed a hammer if you really needed to put a warforged down. "These guys just captured us."

"I'm sure they're preparing the furnace for us as we speak," Chopper said glumly. "They just don't want to waste any material."

The changeling was at the door of the cell, beating her fists against the door, "Let me out! Let me out! I'm not with these lunatics! I'm an innocent inquisitive!"

I wanted to press my hands against my ears. But even here, I had to maintain my image.

"Oh shut up!" Indigo snapped at the changeling. "You're not innocent in any of this!"

"We'll all go to the chop shop together," I agreed.

The changeling burst into tears.

Indigo cursed and put an arm around her, comforting the poor dear.

We were in a cell in the local station of the Sharn City Watch.

The Citadel, being the Citadel, could requisition the resources of the other services from both the law enforcement and the military. The Watchmen had simply moved aside when the agents had flashed their badges and demanded their facilities.

I was frankly impressed.

Not many people can keep a Warforged locked up without dismantling them.

And these bastards did it effortlessly.

There were Glyphs of Warding on all four walls, in multiple layers, with some designed to outright blast anyone who tried to break through, and others to simply paralyze.

I would bet you my best hat that there was also an anti teleportation glyph somewhere.

And they didn't even have a single dragonmark between any of them.

That was impressive.

"You can't think of a way out of this boss?" Bucket asked.

"Unless one of you has a wish spell hidden away somewhere?" I asked. "No? Then I'm out of ideas."

We settled into uncomfortable silence, until the door of our cell slammed open and a soldier entered.

"You!" he barked. "The leader! Come with us."

I sighed, "Wish me luck!"

-Page Break-

The room I was led to was not torture room as one might expect, but a simple room with chair and table.

Discount the two citadel agents at my shoulders, it was almost cozy.

"Alright!" the third man in the room said. "Who hired you!"

"Baron Merrix?" I asked. "Via proxy of course."

"Good try bucket head," the man snapped. I really didn't like him. From his uniform he was Citadel. And human. "Are you sure it wasn't someone from the wasteland? Specifically the prophet your kind worship?"

"Hey now!" I said in riotous indignation. "I'm a honest criminal! I don't do politics! I only do stuff for good old fashioned gold."

"Right!" the man said sarcastically. "And you just happened to land a job that involved the kidnapping of a foreign princess right?"

"Of course!" I said. "You see! An inquisitive…."

I stopped myself and listened to what he had just said.

"Huh?"

"I said," the man said on cue. "How did you manage to land the job that involved the kidnapping of Austasia Ir'Wynarn? And her cousin to boot?"

"Who the what now?" I asked.

Ir'Wynarn? That's the surname used by the select few individuals in this world who can claim direct decent from Galifar himself.

Ir'Wynarn is the royal house.

I had taken the precaution of studying the movers and shakers of this world when I figured out where I was. Mostly so I could avoid them. Partly because I was an Eberron fan, and I jumped at the chance to learn about this world I now lived in.

And since I had perfect memory, I still remembered everything I studied.

So I knew who all the current royals were, right down to the branch families.

Austasia? That name was…..

Hmmm…..

I only knew only one Austasia.

Austasia Dimara Wreyna ir'Wynarn.

The niece of the current queen of Aundair, one of the original five nations.

…..wait a minute.

Dimara?

Mara?

Oh! Fuck! Me!

A runaway princess wanders into your house? And then she joins your party and goes on adventures? That's the kind of shit that happens in other D&D worlds.

This sort of shit doesn't happen in Eberron.

Eberron was sensible!

And the other one….. Corry. She was probably Corrine ir'Wynarn. Another royal.

This was… I had nothing.

"I suppose you won't believe me if I said that we had no idea who they were?" I asked just to make sure.

"No!"

Dammit.

-Page Break-

Chapter 14

After that earth shaking revelation, I had been escorted back to the cell. And I wasted no time in sharing what I had learned with my posse.

Needless to say, they understood just how fucked we were.

After that we just sat around and waited for the next pile of excrement that would come our way.

And the excrement didn't disappoint.

The door to our cell opened, and a Watchman stepped in.

"Alright, you scum!" He rasped. "Come on out! You're being transported to the prison!"

I hauled myself to my feet.

No point in fighting at this stage.

They manacled us and marched us out of the Watch Fortress and into a carriage pulled by a pair of massive oxen.

You needed them if you were transporting multiple warforged.

The giant carriage moved into the roads of Sharn, with horse mounted escorts in the front and the back.

The carriage they stuffed us in had a convenient window for us to look through.

"We're done for aren't we?" Indigo asked, from where she sat next to the changeling.

I saw no point in lying, "Yup. This is the end of the line. Unless we pull off some daring prison colony escape."

The changeling sobbed.

"The good news," I continued. "Is that the baron cannot reach us in prison. So we're safe from him."

"A blessing," Bolt said, and the changeling snorted through her tears.

"I think that we can….," I paused. "What the fuck is that?" I demanded, pointing at the one window in the carriage.

A horde of hobgoblings were blocking the road ahead.

There were dozens of them, armed in military gear I remembered from the war. And they were armed with pikes and crossbows, blocking the road in a textbook military formation.

The Watchmen moved instantly, the horsemen dismounting and running ahead to form their own defensive line as others tried to use sending stones to call for help.

There was a brief moment where the two forces faced each other, the two battle lines separated by a distance of less than twenty feet.

Then, suddenly, the hobgoblins winked out of existence, revealing two men in masks and cloaks crouching where the hobgoblins had been.

One of the men held up a wand, and a giant spider web materialized across the street between the prison carriage and the Watchmen.

The next man clapped his hands together, and a thunderclap resounded across the street, and a shock wave of force flung the Watchmen flying into the giant web, completely immobilizing them.

The two men ran forward, and they both leaped impossibly high, vaulting over the web across the street and landing on the carriage roof and going out of my sight.

There was the sounds of more battle, and then a fog cloud obscured the area.

Then, after no time at all, the carriage doors were being forced open, and we found ourselves facing four figures, masked, hooded, and wearing dark cloaks.

"Gentlebeings," the lead figure said. "We are here to rescue you. Shall we make ourselves scarce?"

Don't look the gift rogue in the mouth.

-Page Break-

Chapter 15

Warforged are different from most beings in a number of ways.

They were unique among the species.

One of the most important differences?

We all looked alike.

Humans have their uniqueness stamped on their physical bodies.

Each face was unique.

No two bodies were quite the same.

Humans could recognize each other on sight.

But warforged?

We were different.

The warforged were made in accordance to a blueprint that clearly laid out the physical parameters of the warforged. There were different models and types, each with their own blueprint, and they were usually mass produced in a single production run.

This meant that all the warforged from a single production run were identical.

The only unique characteristic of the warforged was the rune that we all had somewhere on our bodies, called the ghulra. Each one of them was as unique as a fingerprint.

So if a warforged wanted to disappear?

He just had to find a artificer willing to convert them back to the factory setting, and cover our mark.

Then he was, physically, indistinguishable.

Sadly, this being Eberron, disappearing involved more than getting a paint job and a new name.

Citizens of the twelve nations had citizenship papers, notarized by the dragonmarked House Sivis, and those could not be faked.

If you became a big time fugitive, the kind that would have warrants out for you by all the nations, then you had no choice except to flee to one of the truly lawless corners of the continent. Like the Mournland, the Demon Wastes, or the monster nation of Darguun.

Or you could flee the continent altogether and go to Xen'drik. Or Arenal if you happen to have point ears.

Fortunately for most criminals, only a handful of organizations had the clout to persecute someone to this level.

Unfortunately for us, the royal house was one of them.

And this being Eberron, the thieves guild wasn't the most organized and and efficient organization active. Hell a thieves guild didn't even exist!

The regular City Watch patrolled the streets, but there were also inquisitives that investigated crimes. And organizations like the Citadel that tracked criminals across the continent, and sometimes beyond.

So this left us in a pretty pickle, as Indigo might say.

For now though, we were somewhat fine.

After the fight with the City Watch, our rescue involved us leaping off the sky bridges clutching Featherfall tokens, before being hastily bundled into another carriage and then fleeing into the lowest levels of Sharn.

After our daring rescue by a four man team of three masked men and one woman, we had been hastily escorted into lower Sharn and to the shop of an artificer who worked on us without asking any questions.

He was a dwarf with a bald head and a short cropped beard, and he removed all our custom work, any and all identifying markings on our bodies, and returned us to factory fresh condition.

Indigo was the one that took the most work, but the artificer managed to restore even her to the original template.

Granted it was well into the night by the time he was done.

Our newest member, the changeling inquisitive, only had to shift into a new appearance and she was covered.

All this meant that we were hidden, until someone asked for our papers.

And there was also what we would owe to the posse that so efficiently freed us.

Nothing was free after all. Especially not among the criminal classes.

And just as I had finished thinking that, one of the masked posse, the apparent leader, came into the artificers workshop where we had been gathered watching the artificer, he refused to give his name, work on Indigo.

"Mister Al?" his voice was distorted, likely due to an enchantment on his mask. "There is someone who would like a word with you and your….. friends. Are you ready to meet with them?"

I exchanged a meaningful glance with my posse.

"Let's get this over with."

-Page Break-

Chapter 16

To my everlasting surprise, the person that wanted to meet us turned out to be a warforged.

He was waiting for us in an abandoned building a small distance from the artificer's shop.

The group of masked figures escorted us to the building and then disappeared into the shadows, seemingly leaving us alone with him.

He was covered from head to toe in gunmetal gray armor with no ornamentation, and his only clothes were a belt with a half dozen pouches and a green hooded cloak that was large enough to cover him fully if needed.

He bore no visible weapons, but I wasn't fooled.

Warforged could do quite a lot of damage with just their fists, and weapons could be built right into a warforged by a skilled artificer.

He might look harmless now, but he might produce an entire armory if a fight started.

Also, I reminded myself that this was the being that had hired the posse that had broken us out of prison. This was not the typical naive warforged steryotype.

He might not need any weapons to fuck us over.

"Mister Al, and companions," his voice was mechanical too. "I offer my sympathies for the misfortune that has befallen you. It is a sad state of affairs our kind have to face. The fleshy races exploit us at every turn. We have to turn to crime and go renegade to simply survive. This is what they have done to you. The same thing they do to all of us."

All true, but his rhetoric was worrying. Fleshy races? That was the kind of words the true extremists sprouted.

"You tell me nothing I don't already know," I said evenly. "What concerns me is this, why are you so invested in us? Why go so far to get us out of prison?"

"You are my brothers and sisters," he said without missing a beat. "I would have helped you the moment I heard of your plight, regardless of any other reason."

"But you do have another reason?" I asked.

"I do," he said. "I am Scimitar, and I have been watching the Baron of House Cannith for a long time. During my long vigil, I learned many things."

"Oh?" I asked.

"Yes," he said. "I long suspected that he had disregarded the Treaty of Thronehold and was operating a Creation Forge. That he was creating more of our kind who were then forced into slavery. And now, I have proof."

Oh.

Oh!

Made sense.

It was only a matter of time before someone found what Merrix was doing.

He was running a Creation Forge in Sharn!

Sharn! Where everyone came. Where every secret society, intelligence organization, secret cult, and newspaper reporter had a vested interest. Sharn, where everyone continuously poked their noses into other peoples affairs.

Like I said, it was only a matter of time.

But that left a question.

"How do we come into this?" I asked.

"We can help each other," he said smoothly. "You need sanctuary. And I need that forge. Help me get the forge, and I will arrange for you to receive sanctuary in a safe place."

I did not like where this was going.

The most damning part about that statement was that he didn't want to destroy the Creation Forge, or even report it to the authorities.

That was what anyone with even a pinch of wits would do.

But this warforged was different.

No, he wanted it for himself.

A very very bad feeling had started to creep up on me.

"Where is this safe place?" I asked. "Where do you want us to go?"

"Mournland," he said.

And that told me what I needed to know.

Mournland use to be Cyre. The most beautiful of the five nations.

Now it was a wasteland, the result of a magical nuke destroying the entire nation.

It was filled with mutants, ruins, and magic gone haywire.

Only one significant group operated out of the Mournland. Only one group could survive it's cursed environment.

And only one group would risk violating the Treaty of Thronehold so blatantly and running a Creaton Forge.

"You work for the Lord of Blades," I said.

"Yes," he admitted readily.

He probably knew that there was no point in lying at that point.

The Lord of Blades was the most radical of the warforged. He wanted to go all Rise of the Machines on the rest of Eberron, and was currently gathering forces in the Mournland for just this purpose.

I knew thanks to my meta knowledge that he already had a working Creation Forge, but that one was broken, and worked slowly, and sometimes produced warforged that had disabilities.

He would want a fully working model.

Warforged could be made quite quickly if you had the raw materials.

And the Mournland was full of junk that could be salvaged and fed into a forge.

If he had an undamaged Creation Forge, the Lord of Blades might just have an army in a few years.

I pictured an army of warforged emerging from the Mournland and laying waste to the twelve nations.

I pictured the war starting again.

Dammit!

I had done my best to avoid this band of crazies.

I knew that we warforged were being oppressed, I also knew that something had to be done.

But I also knew that going all Warforged Reich on the continent would just make it worse.

I preferred to take the organized crime approach to solving the problem.

But now?

I was not in a position to walk away.

Not only because we were fugitives.

But also because I couldn't let a working Creation Forge fall into the hands of the Lord of Blades.

If I said no, he would find someone else to get the forge for him.

So I had to get there first and destroy it.

Dammit!

I was a criminal.

Not a bloody adventurer.

And now here I was, practically forced to play the hero.

I really wished the warforged had a god.

-Page Break-

Chapter 17

I ended up agreeing to the job.

Mostly because I didn't want any random person to end up with a Creation Forge.

Convincing my crew to go along with it was harder, but I managed.

Our first order of business was getting some help, because we ourselves were somewhat limited in resources and range of movement.

And on our new employer's recommendation, we went to the four person team that burst us out of prison.

The meeting took place in another abandoned building, there were a lot of them in lower Sharn.

The four of them were dressed in the self same attire they were in when they rescued us, except for one little difference. When we were alone, they dropped their masks and hoods.

They were human, and looked perfectly normal, except for one little detail on one of them.

He has a tattoo with a very distinctive hue across one cheek.

That special hue and pattern usually indicated a dragonmark, but it was no mark I was familiar with. And I had studied the dragonmarks.

Unless I missed my guess, this was an aberrant mark.

A dragonmark was a special tattoo that emerges somewhere on the body and grants it's bearer the ability to use a specific magical power or two. This power depends on the type of mark and it's size. And a dragonmark doesn't just randomly emerge either, it only manifests in very specific family lines.

There were twelve dragonmarked houses in Eberron at this point in time, each held by a single bloodline.

The dragonmarked of Eberron got together and used their abilities to form twelve commerce guilds, each controlled by one of the families, that span the continent and have a stranglehold on the economy.

This was common knowledge, and everyone knew about the twelve houses and their dragonmarks.

But what most people didn't know was that this wasn't always the case.

The history of the dragonmarked was not so clear cut. They had plenty of skeletons in their closets.

Dragonmarked houses had split up, been wiped out, and a long long time ago, the dragonmarks were not so stable.

Sometimes people manifested aberrant dragonmarks. Marks that emerged randomly and were not one of the twelve established marks.

These aberrant marks had random shapes, and gave random powers.

In the bad old days, the dragonmarked houses used to hunt down and slaughter the aberrant marked in an attempt to keep their bloodlines pure and their marks uncorrupted.

I remembered reading about a great purge in my… other life.

Since then, the aberrant dragonmarks were virtually unheard of, and any that emerged were quietly killed off. If any aberrant dragon marked survived, it was because they kept themselves and their marks secret.

In modern civilized times though, the twelve houses would find it much harder to repeat their purge of the impure marks. It made sense that the aberrants were making a comeback, and declaring themselves this openly.

I remember reading something about that too.

"I'm Jag," the human with the mark said. "You were interested in hiring us?"

"Yes," I said. "You know what we have been engaged to do?"

"I have an idea," he said. "Not too many details though, and I'd like to keep it that way."

"Fair enough," I said. "To keep it as minimal as possible, we have been engaged to find something Baron Merrix of House Cannith is hiding. I don't need your help to do the deed. But I do need your help to hire some talent and gather some information."

He grinned, "I'd be delighted to help you stick it to Cannith. What do you need?"

It was time for the heist movie montage.

-Page Break-

Chapter 18

"I won't do it!" the changeling snapped.

"Look Conscript," I said. "We need you! And you need us! This is the only way we can ever get our normal lives back!"

"I'm in this mess because of you!" she snapped.

"No," I countered. "You're in this mess because of you deciding to take a job from Baron Merixx d'Cannith. Now the only way out of this mess is by working with us and proving your innocence!"

She growled at me.

I stared at her with an expressionless face.

This was a lot easier when you are warforged.

She growled again.

I kept staring.

Eventually she sighed and caved, "Fine! Fine! What do you want?"

I rubbed my hands, "I want to know everything there is to know about Merrix d'Cannith! I want to know what his habits are! I want to know who his friends are! I want to know his movements! I want to know where he can be found at any given time! But most of all, I want to know where we can meet him and have a discreet chat!"

"I'm on it," Conscript promised. "I'll give you results in a few days."

"I'll be waiting."

-Page Break-

"What can I do for you my friend," Jag asked. The dragonmark on his cheek twisted like a worm when he smiled.

"I want to force someone to tell the truth magically," I said. "It must work instantly and on a being who might be a spellcaster themselves. And have no way of defending against."

"Well, well," Jag said and clapped his hands. "You're lucky! Because I know exactly where to find someone who has just what you need. The problem is, they are not cheap."

"I expected that," I promised. "They will be paid in full."

"They'll be at your place by tomorrow," Jag promised.

-Page Break-

"We need to move the Creation Forge without damaging it," I said. "And we need to take it all the way to….. Mournland." Except that I had no intention of doing that last part.

"We can use an airship?" Bolt spoke up. "Load it in the ship and fly it over?"

"How do we get it on the ship though?" I asked. "We can't exactly hire a team of porters. For that matter, we don't have a ship either."

"Boss," Indigo spoke up. She looked strange with her modified body gone. "I remember seeing those airships with a compartment in the underside of the hull that would open and drop down cables that can lift goods onto the ship without actually landing."

"I remember them too, but those are ships that have been specially modified. Is one even in Sharn right now?" I asked.

"I remember seeing one not a week ago," Indigo said. "We simply need to commandeer it. I'll handle that part boss. Leave it to me."

"Alright," I said and agreed. "You get us our ship."

-Page Break-

A few days later, our team assembled in an abandoned warehouse we had appropriated as our temporary base.

"Alright team!" I said. "Here is the plan so far." I stepped over to a wall that had a dozen papers and pictures pinned to it.

"First, we intercept Baron Merrix d'Cannith at a time and place where he is most vulnerable, and hit him with a specialized charm spell." I nodded at the newest member of the team courtesy of Jag, a human woman who I was pretty sure had an aberrant dragonmark. "Then we will ask him about where his Secret Creation Forge is. And once we know that, we move into the next stage."

I tapped a picture of a Creaton Forge, it's exact dimensions written next to the picture, "That is where Indigo's newest friend comes in. She has befriended a Skyship captain and has all the information needed for us to board his ship and take it over." Indigo gave a thumbs up. Something I taught her.

"Then we will fly the ship over to where the forge is," I moved to a detailed map of Sharn. "And air lift the forge onboard. Before we run like the armies of Kyber are behind us. Because they probably will be."

The team stared.

"Any questions or comments?" I asked.

"You. Are. Mad!" Jeana, the suspected aberrant, said in a faint voice.

"Yes," I said. "Anything not obvious? No? Excellent! Now, there are a few thing we still need to do." I pointed at Bucket and Bolt. "We need to make sure that our ship stays in dock until we're ready to board. You two will accompany Jeana and pretend to be her bodyguards. Jeana will pretend to be an explorer looking to launch an expedition to Q'barra and charter the ship. You'll have to pay an advanced fee for the ship, I'll provide the necessary funds." One thing about Scimitar, he didn't hesitate to commit funds to the project.

"Mad!" Jeana repeated.

"We will also need to blow up a couple of roofs to reach the forge," I continued as if I didn't hear her. "To that end we need a demolitions expert. Fortunately, I know just the man. I'll see to his recruitment myself."

Indigo raised her hand.

"Yes?" I pointed at her.

"If we find the forge," she said. "We will most likely find Rook."

"Exactly!" I clapped my hands together. "We find the forge, rescue Rook, and leg it. Of course, we might also have to fight our way through a small security force to do so. But I doubt it'll be a problem for us. We need to replace our weapons of course. But our patron is taking care of that."

"This plan is mad," Indigo said. "But it might just work."

If I had a working mouth, I would have grinned.

-Page Break-

"Corporal!" I said cheerfully as the human marched up to me. "How's it hanging?"

"What do you want?" he snapped.

"Do you have to be like that? I thought we were friends?" I was hurt!

"What. Do. You. Want?" Clearly he didn't see it that way.

"Fine!" I said. "I might have a way for you to stick it to the asshole that ruined you."

"What?" He demanded.

"Remember the Baron of House Cannith?" I asked in my best casual voice. "Remember how he fucked you over during the war? How would you like to stick it to him and flee the city?"

"What do you mean? Explain?" He was definitely paying attention now.

"Merrix is violating the Treaty of Thronehold," I said. "I want to ruin what he's working on and expose him. But to do this I need your skill set. Help me, and you'll not only have satisfaction, I'll also help you flee the country, start over…... "

"I was going to help you the moment you said you were going after Merrix," the Corporal said. "As for the rest, I might be too old for that."

"Hey now!" I put my hand around his shoulders. "None of that! You still have many things to do. And much ass to kick."

He laughed.

-Page Break-

"Boss! We have a problem!" Conscript said as she barged into the warehouse not an hour after I got back with the Corporal.

"Of course there is," I said. What was I expecting. "Tell me."

"The baron is leaving the city next week," Conscript said. "He won't be back for months. We only have one chance to intercept him before he leaves."

"And that is?" I asked.

Conscript looked uncomfortable, "He's going to a gala in the city three days from now. It's the only time he will leave the Cannith enclave before his departure."

"Where is this gala?" I asked. I had a bad feeling about this.

She told me.

Fuck!

-Page Break-

Chapter 19

I have had an epiphany.

Eberron was free of the bane of the adventurer.

Wizards in Eberron stayed in universities, and didn't waste their time chaining up elf chicks to dungeons and chasing after litchdom.

Even the adventurers we did have spent their time in Xen'drik, thus leaving the rest of us in peace.

This lures one into a false sense of security.

You think that Eberron is safe.

That you can pursue a perfectly normal criminal career.

This is an illusion.

Eberron is not savage. But Eberron is dangerous all the same.

What it lacks in traditional Dungeons and Dragons shenanigans it makes up for in other ways.

Because this is the Dungeons and Dragons version of a spy thriller.

We're talking James Bond. We're talking Jason Borne.

Hell! Excuse me, Kyber! This place is packed with more secret societies than the world of the Da Vinci Code.

All of this came to me as I waited outside the inn that was playing host to the entertainers of House Phiarlan who were due to perform at the gala.

The genius plan we had come up with was to assault these entertainers, and then replace them, thus gaining access to the gala.

Actually, Indigo and Conscript had come up with the plan while I had been distracted with planning the airship heist. And by the time they told me the plan it was too late to fully alter the plan. But there was time to alter the plan slightly in a manner that would prevent us all from being chopped to pieces.

If they had bothered to ask me, I'd have told them that this was a very bad idea and abandoned the plan entirely.

Because I knew.

You see, for the majority of Eberron, House Phiarlan was a dragonmarked house that specialized in illusion magic. They used this skill to become the best entertainers on the continent. Their shows were unrivaled, even the ones I saw back on Earth could not compare to the sheer beauty of their work.

For me however? I knew that those illusions could easily be used to make you invisible, to cloud the senses of guards and make them ignore the man walking past them, to assume the form of a man's wife or confidant and get him to spill all his secrets.

This was why the members of House Phiarlan were some of the best assassins on the Continent.

And the ones that were better than them? They had names like the Lords of Dust and the Dreaming Dark.

And now we were going to beat up a bunch of them and steal their shit.

What has my life turned into?

But we had no choice.

The gala was hours away.

"Alright lads," I said.

"Ahem!"

"And lass," I amended. "And whatever Conscript is…."

"Hey!"

"Move out!"

-Page Break-

The inn the troupe was staying at was a posh one. The kind of inn that we salt of the earth types would need to pawn our jewelry to spend just one night.

Conscript marched up to the front door, of the inn, wearing the form of a human woman with her hair in an elaborate up-do and dressed in an elaborate gown.

Indigo and I flanked her as her escorts.

Playing the part of a noble lady, she had no problems getting access to the inn.

Then she marched right up to the rooms the entertainer/assassin contingent was staying at.

We were received by a beautiful half-elf girl, who led us to the leader of the troop. Who was an older half-elf male and dressed in simple, but well cut cloths.

"I'm Elisa ir'Cline," Conscript proclaimed. And she had the dress and the other panoply to prove it. "I bring news from His Royal Highness. I'm afraid your engagement has been canceled due to a last minute mix up. Your presence will not be needed at the gala tonight."

The first thing I did was make sure we would not be picking a fight with the best assassins on the continent.

We'd simply tell them their job had been canceled and take their place.

To his credit, the half-elf didn't even blink, "Might I ask why this is being done?"

"There is a last minute speech scheduled by the Baron Merrix d'Cannith," Conscript said without loosing a beat. "It makes it so that one of the entertainment events had to be canceled. And yours was the only one that could be dropped."

"I see," the half-elf said. "I hope His Royal Highness will compensate us for the lost business and time?"

"He will," Conscript said firmly. "And he promises to make it up to you. He will send patronage your way. This matter is simply out of his hands due to….. the baron."

"I understand," the half-elf bowed. "I will wait for your message then."

All very professional. All very polite.

No ninja stars flying. No katana being unsheathed. No one trying to make like Ezio Auditore.

Whew.

We dodged a major bullet there.

-Page Break-

"See?" I said as we walked away from the inn. "All nice and bloodless."

"I was expecting more….. action," Conscript said.

I clapped a hand over her mouth and she squawked in outrage.

"Don't say it!" I said frantically. "We're trying to avoid this turning into James Bond!"

"Whoever is James Bond?" Indigo asked as Conscript bit my palm only to hurt her teeth and tears to fill her eyes.

"Famous spy," I said. "Read about him in a book."

-Page Break-

Chapter 20

The mansion the gala was being held at was in the upper levels of Sharn.

This was where the really posh folks lived.

We're talking the royals. We're talking the nobles. And I mean the noble nobles, not some two bit country squire. The people who lived here were the dukes and the generals, the dragonmarked barons, the ambassadors and their retinues.

And this was where we were headed.

Of course this being Sharn, the mansions were built into the towers themselves.

This particular mansion occupied five whole floors in one of the many towers, with only a royal residence directly above it.

It's resident was His Royal Highness Prince Jurian Ir'Wynarn. A son of the queen of Aundair, exiled because he killed some ponce in a duel, now serving as ambassador.

I however, knew that there was a lot more to his royal highness.

The guard at the gate wore the blue of Aundair and had the dragonhawk on their breastplates. The uniform of the Royal Army of Aundair.

According to the Treaty of Thronehold, an ambassador was granted a lot of rights and privileges, but not quite the same ones from Earth. One of the privileges they did have was the right to maintain their own ambassadorial guard, consisting of troops from their homeland. So this mansion, which was not even Prince Jurian's main residence, was manned and protected by Aundair troops.

Said troops waved us through with a brief inspection of our credentials.

"Refuge in audacity," I said as we marched into the mansion proper.

"You mean no one would be crazy enough to try this, so they don't expect it," Conscript whispered.

"I said that."

The interior of the mansion was something right out of a fairy tale. Massive crystal chandeliers holding thousands of tiny little mage-lights. The air circulated and the entire building magically heated. Music floating through from half a dozen alcoves where musicians played in perfect sync.

And the guests.

The sheer variety of uniforms, robes, dresses, jewelry, and hairstyles they sported was incredible.

A pair of men in the uniforms of the Brelish army rubbed shoulders with a man in the baroque uniform of Karrnath.

Another man in the vestments of a Cardinal of the Church of the Silver Flame was speaking with a woman who wore an open backed dress that exposed her dragonmark.

And in one of the alcoves, there was a man with strangely ethereal features wearing glittering purple silk robes. Unless I missed my guess entirely, that was a Inspired.

There were even a pair of genuine elves in attendance, and not those lunatics from the Valaes Tairn. These were the elves of Arenal. No doubt here representing the undying court.

And in the center of it all, surrounded by women, and a fair number of men, stood Prince Jurian.

He looked exactly like a prince was supposed to look.

Tall, broad shouldered, hair oiled and shining and falling to his shoulders. Dressed implacably in Aundair fashion with a rapier belted at his waist.

The man practically oozed charm and charisma.

Sadly, we didn't get the chance to take in too much of the sights. Because the moment we introduced ourselves we were ushered into an antechamber where we were told to wait until our act began.

"Well boys and girls," I said. "This is it. This is where we sink or swim."

"This is the craziest thing we've ever done," Indigo said. "At least I'll die knowing what it's like to have actual boobs."

"Too bad the spell cannot be kept up," I agreed. "I don't mind being human sometimes."

We had approached the mansion in the guise of half-elves. A combination of polymorph, illusions, and costumes all contributing to the disguise.

Sadly, most of the tricks we used only lasted an hour at most.

Otherwise I would have started using them on a permanent basis a long time ago.

"You don't have much time," Conscript reminded me just then. "Before the spells wear off."

"You're right," I nodded and looked around at my team. "Is everyone ready?"

Nods answered me.

"Then it's showtime! Team! Move out!"

-Page Break-

Chapter 21

We had considered several options for this stage, and had discarded most of them.

What we needed was a distraction.

The problem was that most options would not work here.

Casting an illusion of a huge dragon suddenly breaking through the roof and attacking the guests? That could be dispelled effortlessly by the people here. Actually collapse part of the building and mimic an accident? There was no way we could smuggle in the equipment necessary through this kind of security. Spike the punch and cause hilarious chaos? These kind of people were paranoid about poison. There was no way we could get anything close to the food or drink.

So we had to be innovative.

We had decided that the best option would be to go with an alchemist's substance. Because none of us had the magical versatility needed to do something as complex as this would demand, and because we knew underground alchemists who would give us whatever we asked for and ask no questions.

We needed something that would cause total chaos among the assembled guests. But something that could be administered without needing to consume it. And most importantly, we needed something that would not register as poison to the dozens of advanced spells and enhanced senses they had in this place.

It was me that finally came up with the solution.

And I got the idea from the old cheesy Batman cartoons where the Joker used his laughing gas on whole buildings before being punched out by the bat.

And this being Eberron, it wasn't hard at all to procure a drug that would make LSD seem like a love tap by comparison, and have huge quantities of it made into gaseous form. Believe it or not it already existed, and the alchemist we contacted knew how to make it into a gas that would work after breathing it in.

Apparently some people actually smoked it.

Eberron being Eberron, there apparently was a little niche market for recreational drugs. And the best part? No one has gotten around to banning them yet.

That was something else I hadn't paid much attention to, now that I'm warforged.

I didn't smoke or drink because I couldn't. I had simply ignored that side of things.

It was quite fortunate that we had Conscript among us.

Even more fortunate was the fact that as performers, we were allowed to bring in equipment for our non existant act. Allowing us to smuggle the goods in right under the noses of the guards.

And while it would have been a lot more dramatic to wait until our act and unleash the gas from on the stage after a dramatic speech, we were on a clock. And our target might actually decide to leave in the time we waited.

So, it was not or never.

"Okay troops," I said as we marched out of the antechamber. "Where is Merrix fucking d'Cannith?"

"I see him!" Conscript pointed at a well dressed man with an equally well dressed woman on his arm. "There!"

"Alright!" I waved at Bucket and Bolt. "Do the thing!"

They rolled out the barrels we had brought as a part of our act, and smashed them against the ground, causing both their wooden shells and inner glass casings to shatter, releasing the gas contained within them into the giant ball room.

Then Jeana activated the wand she had up her sleeve and conjured a gust of wind that banished the purple gas bellowing into the center of the room, from where she spread around the entire room to the accompanying screams of the guests.

There was a moment of panic, coughing and spluttering.

Then pandemonium broke loose.

I only had second hand information to go by, but Jeana, who had tried it once, had informed me that the craziest acid trip on earth was not comparable to the Eberron version of the stuff.

We witnessed things there was should never be spoken of again.

Sadly we didn't have much time to enjoy the show as we were too busy running through the crowd towards Baron Merrix.

"He's heading towards the staircase!" Indigo yelled as she jumped over a nobleman wrestling with a guard. "He wasn't caught in the gas."

"Of course he wasn't!" I yelled as I ran past a lady in a ballgown who was trying to….. molest an elf who frankly wasn't trying too hard to resist. "That would have been too easy!"

"Up the stairs! Hurry!" Conscript took the lead, pausing to kick a handsy military type in the crotch. "I'm not missing this chance!"

We ran full pelt through the riot building in the ball room towards the stairs, in hot pursuit of Merrix d'Cannith.

For all my griping about it, I really did feel like James Bond in that moment.

-Page Break-

Chapter 22

For a middle aged man with no chance for exercise, the baron did a pretty good job of keeping ahead of us and managed to reach the top of the stairs and dash down the corridor that led immediately away from it, darting into one of the dozens of doors that led away from the corridor.

"Quickly! Don't let him out of sight!" I yelled and increased my speed, thundering down the corridor.

As I passed in front of one of the many doors, a bast of magic lifted me off my feet and sent me hurling into the closed door opposite, and when that closed door shattered upon impacting with my body, I ended up in the room where that door led to, laying in a heap on the floor.

I managed to untangle my limbs and climb to my feet, only to come face to face with the host of the evening himself, Prince Jurian Ir'Wynarn of the Kingdom of Aundair, still dressed in his finery but with his coat and shirt half undone, brandishing his rapier.

I scrambled to draw my own concealed sword even as I shouted to my posse, who had paused to peer in at the door to the room, "Go! Go! Don't let him get away! I'll catch up."

Thankfully, they obeyed and ran off, leaving me alone with the prince.

We only had this one chance, to catch the baron after all. And if we blew it, we were fucked.

"Brave of you," Prince Jurian said, only sparing a glance at my departing posse. "Facing me alone. Especially after starting that ruckus downstairs."

"Prove it," I said as I went into a fighting stance. "And besides, whatever is the host of the party doing up here while things are getting warmed up downstairs?"

"A young lady needed help with her laces," Prince Jurian said that with a completely straight face.

"Oh you," I said and attacked.

I was using a longsword, it being the weapon I was most familiar with.

Prince Jurian managed to avoid my slash at his neck by dodging with inhuman speed, and thrust at my abdomen, only for the blade to scrape off my armor plating.

He almost lost his balance for a moment then, and I took advantage of it by kicking out at him and driving him back.

I blocked his next thrust with my blade and used the momentum to redirect his rapier upwards, before cutting at his exposed midsection.

He backpedaled again.

We fought like that for a while, his rapier trying to penetrate my armor and failing, and me trying to strike him with my longsword and him dodging out of the way, when Jurian suddenly changed tactics.

He backed up several paces, raised his sword in a guard stance, and raised his other hand and made a complicated gesture.

I felt the wave of magic hit me, and when the momentary distortion of vision cleared, I looked down at myself and found that I was once more in my original warforged form, the illusion that covered me having faded.

"I thought something was wrong," Prince Jurian said with a satisfied smile. "You were too durable to be a half elf. And you were far too strong."

"Yes, you got me," I said and spread my arms. "What do you plan to do about it?"

"This!" He said and his rapier glowed green and tiny runes carved along it's length fired up and energy crackled along it's length.

"Oh," I said.

Of course a prince would have an enchanted sword. I didn't know just what that enchantment was, but I would hazard a wild guess that it would have let him beat my armor class if we were playing the game. Or maybe it gave him advantage against warforged?

Either way, it would penetrate my armor.

Prince Jurian grinned at me, "Ready?"

Then something crashed into his head, and Prince Jurian's eyes crossed and he collapsed in a heap.

In his place stood Mara, dressed in a smaller version of the ballgowns worn by the adults, and holding the small marble statue she had just used to whack her uncle over the head with.

"Mara?" I asked.

She dropped the statue and threw herself at me, hugging my middle and sobbing.

"Um, you alright?" I patted her head awkwardly.

"I'm sorry!" she sobbed. "I got you into trouble because I was selfish! Because we lied to you and used you! We tried to tell them that you didn't harm us, but they just said we had been enchanted."

I really really wanted to yell at her. She had, quite literally, thrown us into the fire from the frying pan. But looking at her sobbing face, I decided it can wait.

"Hey now," I said and hugged her. "There's nothing wrong with chasing your dream. We'll figure out later just who is to blame for what. For now, I have to make tracks before your uncle wakes up."

"I'm coming with you!" she said as she got over her sobbing and wiped her face, unhugging me and turning to run alongside me.

I looked at her incredulously, "While I'm not surprised per-se. Don't you want to stay here where it's safe rather than accompany the wanted fugitive?"

"This is my fault," she said as she grabbed the hem of her gown and hiked it up so she could run better. "I'm coming with you and helping! It's the least I could do!"

"You realize we will be hunted by every organization in the kingdom after this one?" I asked. "Hell, we'll be hunted by the entire continent after this."

"I don't care!" she yelled stubbornly. "I'm not leaving you!"

"That's my girl!"

What? I'm a criminal. We're supposed to corrupt youth, not redeem it. And somehow, I didn't want this vivacious child wasted on a political marriage arranged by her aunt, her life and her wonder at the world drained away by cold reality.

Maybe there was room for a couple of adventures in Eberron.

-Page Break-

Chapter 23

We found the Baron Merrix d'Cannith in one of the many rooms that led from the corridor, tied to a chair by my team and screaming abuse at them.

"You got him secured then," I said as I stepped into the room, Mara at my heels.

"It wasn't easy," Indigo said with a glance over her shoulder. "But we managed."

"He didn't….damage any of you?" I asked. That had been a major worry of mine. A master Cannith artificer with the mark of making is uniquely suited to disabling, or even crippling, a warforged.

"He couldn't see through our illusions," Indigo said and waved away my concern. "He didn't know what we are. Hello Mara."

"Indigo?" Mara asked hesitantly, and at Indigo's nod, she flew into Indigo's arms and hugged her, once more saying she was sorry.

Indigo, unsurprisingly, hugged her back.

I knew she liked the little brat.

"Alright," I said briskly. "Let's not waste time. I just assaulted a blood royal and I really don't want them catching us at this point in time."

"You assaulted?"

"Are you mad?"

"Focus!" I said and waved towards the tied up baron. I pointed at Jeana, "Do the thing!"

Jeana stepped forwards and raised her left hand towards the baron's face, and I guessed that she was activating her hidden aberrant dragonmark. The baron certainly responded accordingly, his eyes glazed over and his expression went slack.

"It's done," Jeana said, lowering her arm. "Ask him the questions."

"That doesn't look like a Charm spell," Conscript said from her place in the corner of the room.

"It's not quite a charm," Jeana said. "In some ways it's weaker, but stronger in others. Like when it comes to getting information. Now ask! You have an hour at most!"

"Alright," I said and stepped forward. "Bucket? Bolt? Watch the door please lads. Lets find out where Rook as gotten to."

-Page Break-

"First order of business," I said. "Where is Rook? The warforged you had your goons capture."

"I had them deliver him to my laboratory," the baron said. His voice was monotone, his face slack. Jeana was right. This didn't look like a Charm spell at all.

"Is he unharmed?" I asked the next question, and I felt the others lean forward in anticipation around me.

"He is merely restrained for now," the baron said, and I felt a weight leave my chest. I had been terrified that I had gotten one of my crew killed.

"And where is he restrained?" I asked again.

"At my laboratory," the baron answered in the same monotone.

"You have to be specific," Jeana put in. "Ask what you want very carefully, or the answer will be literal or incomplete."

"Got it," I said and turned to the baron again. "Give precise directions to your laboratory that you just mentioned, and also give me a description of the safeguards and other security measures contained within."

The baron did, listing first the address, and then the safeguards. All listed carefully and accurately, all in a monotone voice.

"Well," Indigo said. "We can avoid most of that by just dropping in from the roof."

"Yes," I said before turning to the baron again, "One more question for you. Is your secret Creation Forge in this laboratory?"

"Yes," the baron said.

"And that's that!" I said and rubbed my hands together. "We have everything we need."

"Now we just have to get out of here," Conscript said. "And it sounds like they have the riot downstairs under control, mostly. It's only a matter of time before they come up here and do a sweep of the mansion."

"Fear not Conscript!" I stuck a pose. "For I have a cunning plan!"

-Page Break-

Chapter 24

"Oh Flame!" Conscript wailed as we all piled into the balcony. "We're going to die!"

"Oh come on!" I snapped. "You live in Sharn. I'm sure you did this before."

"I'm afraid of heights!" Conscript wailed.

"Huh," I said. "Well I suppose you get all types in Sharn. We're still doing it though."

"Oh Flame!" Conscript said again as we all stepped over to the edge.

"Steady now," I said. "Everyone has their featherfall tokens?" Nods all around. "Get ready to activate them on my mark!"

"This is madness!" Conscript wailed as we all gathered ourselves for the jump.

"Madness? Madness?" I asked, my voice rising. "This is SHARN!" Then I kicked her in her rump, sending her screaming over the edge.

"Now!" I jumped off the edge myself, and around me the others joined me.

We all fell freely for three floors before I yelled, "Featherfall!" and snapped my token, instantly slowing my descent. I even managed to twist just so and make a perfect three point landing.

Around me, the others made their landings as well, all of them unharmed, though Conscript seemed to have peed herself.

"Quickly! Quickly!" I leaped to my feet and dashed forwards. "With me!"

We had avoided having to fight or trick our way through the mansion a second time by a simple jump, and we had to seize the advantage it gave us.

"There!" Mara pointed while still running. "There it is!"

"Excellent!" I yelled and changed course to aim for the fancy carriage with the House Orien colors prominently displayed upon it's sides, that was parked next to a line of other equally expensive looking carriages.

This was the mansions carriage park. The equivalent of the underground garage.

One of the mansion guard tried to stop me, but I punched him out and kept running, not stopping till I reached the carriage itself.

"You!" I pointed at the terrified driver with my sword. "Get off! We're taking the carriage!"

The driver, who seemed to be a very worldly type of person, complied.

"Everybody on! Quickly!" At my yell, everyone piled inside, which left me in the drivers seat with Indigo riding shotgun and Mara on Indigo's lap.

Indigo shrugged at my stare, "She wanted the front seat."

"Fine," I said and whipped the reins. "Go! Go!"

-Page Break-

The carriage burst out of the mansion gates and thundered down the street, the buildings and people whipping past us.

"And now we have the obligatory car chase!" I yelled as I whipped the horses to go faster. "This is the adventuring life Mara! How do you like it?"

"I love it!" Mara yelled over the rattling of the carriage.

"We're a terrible influence for her!" Indigo yelled at me.

"Oh shut it and check if they're following us!" I yelled back. "And let me drive!"

"There's no one behind us!" Indigo yelled. "Just keep driving!"

"What do you think I'm doing right now?" I asked even as I whipped the horses into a greater frenzy.

The carriage turned a corner, one wheel in the air, and just barely managed to stabilize before leaping forward again.

"I thought we were going to crash!" Mara screamed.

"That was close!" I agreed. "But it's not far now!" Indeed, I could see the House Lyrander enclave ahead.

"Where are we going!" Mara asked. "To the harbor?"

"Harbors are for pu….. wimps!" I said as we turned the final corner. "We have something much better!"

-Page Break-

Chapter 25

House Lyrander was the dragonmarked house that bore the mark of the storm. It gave it's holders the ability to command the winds. This involving anything from conjuring a magewind to calling down lighting to calming a storm. In the old days when travel and trade depended heavily on sailing ships, House Lyrander had pretty much cornered that market and made out like bandits. And when elemental binding had been discovered and air ships had entered the stage, House Lyrander had jumped at the chance to expand their portfolio. The members of the house were all half-elves, and they were currently headquartered in an island called Stormhome that they practically ruled over, but there were also rumors that they were establishing themselves in the new elven nation of Valenar. But they kept a significant presence in Sharn. They couldn't afford not to, what with Sharn being the economic capital of the kingdom, possibly the continent.

In practical terms, this translated into airships always sitting at the enclave, ready and fueled to go.

"There it is!" Indigo pointed at one of the ships tied to the moorings as we approached the House Lyrander enclave at speeds that would have gotten us arrested if Sharn had a speed limit.

"How are we getting on it?" Mara asked as she clung to Indigo. "They won't let us in! And we can't fight through to there!"

She was right.

Air ships were valuable commodities, and the dragonmarked houses took security seriously.

There was no chance of fighting our way through the enclave into a ship.

Fortunately, we didn't plan to.

The House Lyrander enclave was built into one of the towers of Sharn. It occupied dozens of floors, all converted into cargo bays, repair stations, and living quarters. The air ships were moored into the side of the tower vertically, which meant that wile some ships were anchored far above our heads, others were far below us.

The ship we wanted was about three stories below us, and as planned, we were approaching it from a sky-bridge that connected the enclave to another tower and it's streets and walkways.

This gave us an opportunity.

Even as we approached the halfway mark of the sky-bridge a familiar figure stepped out from where they had been concealed behind a statue of a giant bear and waved us down.

I got the horses to stop, barely managing to avoid running the poor bastard over.

"You got the stuff?" I asked as we all dismounted.

"I got the stuff," he pointed at the pile of bags next to the bear statue. "Did you get him?"

"Oh yes," I said. "Baron Merrix is well and truly fucked! We just need to do one more thing to drive the final nail into his coffin!"

"Then let's get on with it!" he said and moved towards the bags, the rest of us following.

The bags contained a number of tools, but prominent among the lot was the specially made rope, strong enough to support a warforged's weight, and the grappling hooks. And even more prominently, they contained artificer made crossbows capable of propelling the grappling hooks across huge distances.

"Hurry up lads!" I said as I grabbed one crossbow and started to load the grappling hook into it before connecting the rope to the end of the hook. Beside me Bucket and Bolt were doing the same, while Indigo and Chopper were anchoring the other ends of the ropes into the sky-bridge itself by driving metal spikes into the ground with the aid of a large hammer.

Once we were done, we hauled the weapons up into the railing that ran alongside both sides of the sky-bridge and took aim.

"Ready?" I asked as I sighted down the crossbow. "We can't afford to miss this one."

"Ready boss!" Bucket said from where he was taking aim.

"I'm ready!" Bolt was right beside Bucket.

"Alright!" I said and checked my aim one last time. "Fire!"

The three grappling hooks sailed through the sky towards the airship, and lodged themselves flawlessly into it's hull thanks to the enchantments woven into the hooks.

Beside us, Conscript fell to the ground and curled herself into a ball, whimpering. She hadn't known the details about this stage of the plan, and simply knew that we planned to take a ship. If I had to guess, she probably figured out what we were planning now.

"Now now!" I yelled. "Quickly! Someone grab her and bring her!"

I grabbed a leather harness from the bag and clipped it onto the rope line that was now taught.

Now or never.

"Follow me!" I yelled and bent over to grab Mara and throw her across my shoulder before grabbing the harness with one hand and trowing myself across the yawning drop below.

If I still had a heart, it would be pounding right out of my chest.

Mara whooped and screamed on my shoulder, holding on to me for dear life.

Behind me, a sound like an elephant being sodomized announced that someone had grabbed Conscript and followed us.

"The others are coming!" Mara screamed. She could see them as she was pressed against my chest and facing the direction of the sky-bridge.

The ride across the chasm took seconds, but those few seconds, dangling across the space between the towers of Sharn, was a once in a lifetime experience.

If I looked down I could see the towers extend downwards to a black abyss, with the everbright lanterns being the only points of light. It took your breath away.

Metaphorically, in my case.

Then the moment was over, and I braced my legs as I slammed into the side of the ship.

"Hold onto me," I told Mara as I produced the climbing hooks from my waist pouch and used them to haul myself up towards the deck of the ship.

It was a short trip, but with absolutely no safety net and with a very very long drop if anything went wrong, it was hair raising.

Again, metaphorically.

I could feel Mara shivering against me.

But I managed, and managed to haul myself onto the deck of the airship, Mara with me.

The terrified screams from behind indicated the arrival of Conscript and whoever was hauling her with them. And out of the corner of my eye I saw Bolt pull himself onto the deck ahead of me.

The deck of the airship was wide and open, with room for passengers to take in the sights and land cargo. The main difference between it and a normal ship was the massive ring that encircled it at exactly halfway point on it's hull. That was where the elemental was bound, and that was where the magic happened.

The crew mostly worked out of the raised section in the back, I think it was called the quarter deck.

And speaking of crew, they were spilling out onto the deck.

There were only a half dozen of them, a skeleton crew to man the ship while it was on the dock, but they did know how to fly it.

I needed to take control of the situation before someone did something stupid. I considered what to say for only a moment before deciding to go with the classic, "Mara? I want you to do something for me."

Then I set Mara on the ground, drew my sword, and stepped forwards, Bolt and Bucket flanking me, "Everyone stay calm! We're taking the ship!"

"Aye! Avast!" Mara yelled right on cue.

Perfect.

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Chapter 26

So far things were going as planned.

This only served to massively raise my paranoia.

We had carried out the most audacious and insane plan ever carried out in Sharn, and so far we had managed to make it work. Stages one through five had gone off without a hitch, except for my impromptu duel with a prince of Aundair.

This level of luck was not usual.

Any moment now, I thought, things would so south. Any moment now.

"Boss! We have pursuit!"

And there it was.

I turned to see a couple of House Lyrander skyships detaching from their moorings and turning to face us. The massive fire elementals bound to the rigs around their middle, they were impossible to miss, even in the darkness of the night.

"Of course they would have a watch posted," I said. "I just didn't think they'd have this kind of response time."

"We might be in trouble," Bolt said as he stepped up behind me.

"Not as much trouble as would appear at first sight," I said, assuring him. "They wont risk summoning lightning or calling stormwinds inside a city. An airship crash would be a disaster! They're going to have to board us."

"You hope," Indigo said from her place standing over the terrified captain.

She was right of course, those half-elf bastards might just be crazy enough to try that, but I wasn't admitting it, "Just get him to speed up! We need to keep our distance."

Indigo complied, and threatened the poor captain at sword point to increase speed, and our ship sped through the night time sky at speeds that I was sure would get us arrested. I doubt the Sharn authorities took kindly to what was essentially flying an airplane between skyscrapers at ludicrous speeds with no regard for the safety of the citizens.

"I do this under protest!" the captain decided to speak up at just that inconvenient moment. "This is madness! This will get us all killed, or thrown in prison for life!"

"Oh shut up!" I snapped at him. "And watch the buildings! We don't want to crash and hurt anyone, or worse, hurt us!" Indigo reinforced my command by tickling his neck with her blade.

He growled, but kept his eyes on his job.

Before long, we were turning a corner and rapidly approaching a certain way point that played an important part in our plan. Namely a skybridge that we would pass under.

"There it is," I turned to Bucket. "Give the signal!"

He obediently pulled out an Eberron equivalent of a flare and lit it, waving it around in a predetermined pattern.

We all waited with baited breath, until finally, an identical flare lit up on the skybridge and returned the symbol.

"Whew!" Indigo let out, even though she had no lungs to sigh with.

"Yes," I admitted. "I was worried for a minute there. Captain!" I yelled at the half elf flying the ship. "Reduce speed to a walk as you pass under the bridge, then get ready to accelerate rapidly on my order!"

The captain obeyed, and the ships slowed almost to a stop as it came directly under the bridge.

Looking up, I could see figures free-falling down, their dark cloaks flapping behind them.

"Make room! Get out of their way!" I yelled as five figures landed safely with the aid of featherlight charms on the deck of the skyship. "Alright! Go! Go! Go!" I yelled and the captain and he obliged. We were almost thrown off our feet as the ship accelerated rapidly.

-Page Break-

Three of them were warforged. Wearing no cloths other than their armor plate, proudly displaying their heritage. These were the agents sent by the Lord of Blades.

The other two were tied up humans, and one was flat out unconscious, while the other was screaming and wiggling in her bonds.

"Glad you guys made it," I addressed the three warforged. Always talk softly to madmen, you don't want them getting violent. "Did you have any trouble?"

"No," their leader replied. His name was Scimitar.

I would have made a joke about him compensating for something, but again, fanatical radical who was armed.

At least his two cronies were named Rapier and Dagger…

Any way, I worked past his utterly ridiculous naming convention and gestured to the tied up human woman, "Mind turning her loose? We need to get her up to speed."

Scimitar complied, and in a moment the woman was free, had leaped to her feet, and was hurling abuse at us.

"You won't get away with this! This isn't the first time scum like you have tried to intimidate me! You won't stop my work! You will rot in prison for this! They will put you in Dreadhold!"

I sighed and gestured to indigo, and she covered the woman's mouth with her hand and put her other arm around her, restraining her quite effectively with her warforged strength..

"Now," I said as I addressed the pair of furious eyes showing above the warforged hand. "You're Mira Steelhand correct? You write for the Korranberg Chronicle?"

She glared furiously at me from her awkward position and after a moment, gave me a nod.

"You are also known for exposing several corrupt nobles with your column. You are quite controversial," I said, continuing to hold her eye.

A longer pause before another nod.

"Well then my dear," I said and paused for dramatic effect. "Baron Merrix d'Cannith is running a secret Creation Forge, and we're on our way there right now. We want you to tell the world about it!"

She stared at me for a long moment, before her eyes rolled up in her head and she went limp in Indigo's arms.

Fainted.

"Seriously?"

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Chapter 27

"There it is!" I yelled as the airship approached. "Get ready!"

Surprisingly enough, the location the baron had chosen for his pet project wasn't the underground bowels of Sharn, but rather a decrepit half collapsed tower on it's outer edges.

I suppose it made sense.

This is where people would be least inclined to look.

"Move us directly above the tower!" I yelled at the captain. "And hold position!"

"This is…." the captain began, only to be cut off by Indigo. "Oh shut up and do it!"

He complied, maneuvering the vessel into position above the tower.

Say what you will about that captain, he knew his job.

"Okay! Hold position till I tell you to!" I said and turned to my crew. "Everyone get ready! Corporal! You're up!"

"I'm on it!" he yelled back as he lugged the backpack he had been carrying with him throughout and unpacked, before lobbing the contents over the side.

Then we waited.

BOOM!

The explosion rocked the ship, the sound almost deafening to human ears. Looking over the side, I could see that a good chunk of the tower roof had been blown away, exposing the interior.

Perfect.

"Alright troops, line up!" I yelled before turning to the captain. "Captain, be a dear and take the ship as far away from here as possible before surrendering. Or don't and be caught in the epic battle that will soon take place. Your choice."

I gave him a pat on the back and turned to review my team.

There were my own crew. Indigo, Bolt, Bucket and Chopper.

There were the fanatics. Scimitar, Dagger and Rapier.

And then there were the humans. The Corporal, who was a veteran soldier. Mara, who was definitely not a veteran and had to be protected. Jeana, who I was now sure was a member of house Tarkanan. Mira Steelhand, the Loise Lane wannabe who was another liability but a necessary one. And finally, the still tied up and unconscious human male, who was luggage.

And finally Conscript was representing the changelings. She wasn't helpless once her feet touched the ground. But she had her irrational fear of heights.

Altogether there were fourteen of us counting me.

My team.

With which I was going to pull what would be the greatest heist of the century.

When I wanted to be a criminal, I pictured my self as the godfather, not Danny fucking Ocean.

Oh well.

"Great ready to jump," I yelled. "Mara, Conscript, Mira, and the luggage! Grab onto someone! Featherfall token ready! On my mark! Go!"

As we fell away from the skyship, I could see the captain keeping up his end of the bargain and accelerating away.

Hopefully the perusing ships would follow him and leave us to do our thing. Which would give us a very small window until the city authorities arrived to investigate the explosion.

Right now though, we had more pressing concerns.

Like not missing the very recently created hole in the wall.

I angled my body downwards, aiming straight for the opening. Beside me, out of the corner of my eye, I could see the others copying my movements. I hoped, really hoped, that we wouldn't end up colliding with all of us trying to fit through the narrow opening. That would be the last thing we needed.

-Page Break-

Lucky for us, we all landed safely. With most of us triggering our tokens the moment we cleared the hole in the tower roof.

We landed among the rubble and wreckage of what used to be the top floor of the tower. According to the baron, this floor was used as a storage space.

"I hope the forge wasn't here!" Scimitar said as he walked up to me. "Because we might just have buried it under the rubble!"

"He said it was two floors below!" I snapped. "Quickly! Before the guards can mount a defense! Weapons and shields everyone! Weapons and shields! Squishy people towards the back! Follow me!"

At my order everyone leaped into action, and we moved towards the nearest staircase, with me leading and Scimitar at my left, armed with a mace and holding a round shield in his other arm.

We kicked in the door at the bottom of the stairs, and found the first resistance.

A group of four men in Cannith colors who had just been about to open said door. No doubt to investigate the noise upstairs.

Scimitar buried his mace in the face of the first guard and kicked him into the body of the second one, before engaging a third.

That left the fourth for me.

I bashed the surprised man with my shield and used the opportunity to bury my blade in his throat.

Scimitar finished with the man he was fighting and joined me, pausing only to stab the second guard who was beginning to get back up.

Quick and brutal.

The rest of the group emerged onto the second floor after us, with some of them making noises at the dead people.

But I really didn't have the time to spare for that now.

This entire floor was littered with warforged parts. All neatly arranged on tables and put up on stands. Arms, legs, heads, torsos. Giant drawing boards contained detailed schematics of the warforged anatomy, drawn in incredibly fine detail. Tools that artificers used lay on some of the tables, laid out in neat rows.

"This is the lab," Indigo said, quite unnecessarily.

"Yes," I waved at the general area. "Rook should be here somewhere! Find him! Quickly!"

We spread out and ran through the lab, quickly glancing at every nook and cranny. The entire floor had been converted into the lab, with the walls taken out and only solitary columns interspersed between the laboratory equipment.

"Merrix is fucked!" Conscript said as she ran alongside me. "The Watch will come to check out the explosion, and when they find this….. he's fucked!"

"It was shortsighted of him to build something this big out here," I agreed. "And if we're lucky, the Citadel comes with the Watch. That would really get things moving."

Conscript had just opened her mouth to reply when Mara's voice got our attention.

"I found him!"

We ran over to where she was, the others following, and sure enough, there was Rook, restrained in a transparent tube like container and apparently unconscious or unresponsive.

The problem was that he wasn't alone.

There were twenty other tubes, containing twenty other warforged.

"Bugger."

This just got complicated.

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Chapter 28

"What are we going to do boss?" Indigo asked me. Then, when I didn't respond, "Boss!"

I heard her perfectly, but I was too busy thinking to answer.

Before us were twenty one warforged, including Rook.

They were my people, I had long since accepted that I was one of them despite my constant complaints. And these warforged had been created in the lab and used for the baron's experiments, which, even if we felt no pain in the conventional sense, I'd bet were abusive and harmful.

Merrix d'Cannith had done this. He had done this to my people. Built them up and taken them apart like a child would assemble lego figures. I wanted to kill him. I regretted not killing him.

For the first time in a long time, I was very, very, angry.

And I'd bet I wasn't the only one.

Maybe it was my anger influencing me, maybe I wasn't thinking straight at that point in time, but I suddenly didn't even want to contemplate leaving these warforged behind.

I had made it my sort of mission to help as many of the warforged in this world as I could.

It was the real reason behind my whole criminal empire thing.

And now, here were just the kind of warforged that needed my help. And I was torn, even if I desperately wanted to do this.

I had entered this situation with an exit strategy. No criminal worth his salt would enter a situation without an exit strategy. But that strategy was designed to cover ten people at most and a Creation Forge. We simply didn't have the means to take these warforged with us. And even if we did, we'd loose valuable time waking them up and getting them ready.

The logical move, the sensible move was to leave them behind.

As if reading my mind, Scimitar said, "We can't take them with us!"

"I know," I said absently, even as the noise of footsteps grew louder.

We could grab Rook and book. Hopefully the authorities who eventually crash this party will help these warforged. Though it was a tossup. Unless someone plays it just right, or if the lab staff are given even a few moments to come up with a plan, they might make the evidence disappear.

Either way, we would be abandoning twenty of our own.

I would loose respect among my crew, respect I might never gain back.

And that might come back to bite me sooner rather than later, when I ordered them to turn on Scimitar and his posse to prevent the Lord of Blades from getting the Creation Forge.

"There are too many of them to be moved easily," Scimitar said again. "We can't risk…..," the door to the room banged open before he could continue, and we all turned to face another group of guards.

There were six of them this time, and I knew from the interrogation that there were only twelve guards that Merrix d'Cannith trusted absolutely in this place, along with a couple of assistants. This represented the strongest resistance we will probably receive in this place.

"Mara! Stay behind me!" I shouted and leaped forward in a flying kick that caught the lead attacker completely off guard and sending him flying backwards to land on his back.

I didn't give him any chance to recover, burying my long sword in his gut and viciously yanking the weapon out.

Another sword clanged against my armor plating a minute later, and I turned to block the second swing from an enraged guard, only to lower my sword as Scimitar smashed his mace into the guards head from behind, dropping the man like a sack of potatoes.

Around me, a similar scene was playing out. The guards might have been good at their job and loyal, but they were no match for war veterans and the Lord of Blades fanatics who were very very angry upon witnessing their masters handiwork.

The guards were wiped out.

"Boss? What should we do?" Indigo asked again after she wiped her blade off the cloak of a fallen guard. "We're loosing time!"

I thought about it.

I really thought about it.

I was responsible for the safety of my crew.

But I was also responsible for my people.

I commended my soul to the gods and made the hardest choice I ever made.

"Do you guys trust me?" I asked. "Because this might ruin us all if this goes wrong."

My crew looked at each other, but I wanted to weep when they exchanged nods answered within seconds.

"We will follow you boss," Indigo spoke for them all.

"Good," I turned to Scimitar and his crew. "We're changing the mission! We will not abandom these warforged!"

"This is a mistake!" Scimitar laid his hand on his weapon. Even as he spoke, his two companions moved up along his sides. "The Creation Forge is more important! It will give our people hope! It will ensure us a future!"

"And you will acquire it at the expense of twenty of our kind?" I asked. "No! That's how humans do things! We're better!" I gestured to to unconscious man they had brought with them and who was even now laying on the ground, still unconscious, still tied up. "Wake him up and teleport out. We're staying. If you want to do anything else, you have to fight us."

"You are making a mistake," Scimitar said, but he didn't draw his weapon. He knew he was outnumbered. He knew he couldn't win a fight. That didn't exactly fill me with confidence.

"Time will tell," I said. "I made my choice. Leave!"

They left.

They forced the forced the poor House Orien man they kidnapped into consciousness and forced him to teleport them out.

That left the rest of us standing in the lab.

"Wake them up!" I commanded. For good or for ill, we had made our choice.

We had thrown out a chance to secure a Creation Forge, for the sake of twenty warforged.

I must be going mad.

"Um, boss?" Bolt sidled up to me as Rook was woken up from what turned out to be a sensory deprivation field. "What exactly will we do now? The Watch will be coming. And others."

"My dear Bolt!" I said with a confidence I didn't feel. "There is still one more card I haven't played! It's called," I paused for dramatic effect. "Heroic BSOD!"

"Um?"

"Heroic Bull Shitting Of Death!" I proclaimed.

-Page Break-

The End

-Page Break-

Korranberg Chronicle

Secret Creation Forge Exposed!

Merrix d'Cannith Arrested!

By Mira Steelhand

Dear readers! The entire city of Sharn was rocked yesterday with the revelation of the heinous act committed by one of our cities most celebrated nobles.

Before yesterday, Merrix d'Cannith was a prominent figure in our city, working to further the goals of his noble house, working tirelessly to repair the damage of the Last War.

Yesterday, all of that changed.

The Sharn City Watch responded to a reported disturbance to find a secret laboratory concealed within one of the ruined towers of Sharn, a laborotary built for experimenting on warforged, and in the middle of it all, a fully active Creation Forge!

As you know, dear readers, the Treaty of Thronehold that recognized the warforged as a sentient race, with all the rights and privileges that are due to such a race, also outlawed the creation of new warforged. As part of this treaty, all Creation Forges across the continent were dismantled, and maintaining one in working order was declared to be a crime of the highest order.

There have long been rumors of secret forges maintained by shadowy organizations, but nothing was ever proven.

I don't think any of us expected such a prominent figure to be the one to finally be found violating this law and spit upon the treat that ended the horror that was the Last War.

As it happens, dear readers, this reporter had the privilege of having a front row seat to the exposing of Merrix d'Cannith's crimes. Because the heroes that brought this matter to the light of day were nice enough to invite me to accompany them in their adventure.

These heroes, most of whom are warforged themselves, were led by an up and coming businessman called Al. One of the few warforged entrepreneurs in Sharn. He first uncovered the vile secret kept by the Baron Merrix d'Cannith thanks to a lucky warforged who managed to escape from the barons evil clutches and, despite Baron Merrix doing his best to discredit our hero and get him arrested for crimes he never committed, even accusing him of kidnapping a royal princess! Our hero prevailed, and did not rest until he brought the Baron to justice!

You will be pleased to know, dear readers, that our hero and his friends have been completely exonerated by the authorities and will even be rewarded! Rumor is that the king himself has taken an interest, and has announced that he intends to see the heroes rewarded! Hardly surprising as our noble king is one of the strongest proponents of warforged rights in the continent! Indeed, can we forget that it was he who pushed for warforged independence at that fateful Thronehold meeting?

As for the villain of this story, House Cannith has already censured Merrix d'Cannith, and the house has announced planned to hand down their ultimate sanction, and excoriate Merrix d'Cannith. Indeed, Merrix d'Cannith might be the man we thought of at all, because the very day all of this came to light, the baron was already caught causing a scene at a gala thrown by….

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Epilogue

It had been a couple of weeks since our adventure, and things were starting to settle down.

The newspaper interviews, the adoring crowds, the award ceremonies, and the City Watch and the Citadel poking around had all died down.

Finally.

But in the end, our names were cleared, we were declared heroes, and our reputation had skyrocketed.

At least I had been quick to capitulate on the opportunity and negotiate a few lucrative business contracts and invest the money we received from the government to see to the welfare of the twenty captive warforged we managed to free.

Say what you will about our king, he doesn't hold back when it comes to handing out rewards.

Oh yeah.

That also happened.

I met the king.

King Boranel ir'Wynarn of Breland. The old bear.

That was one of the most hairraising experiences of my life, and I didn't even have any hair. Even when the man was praising me, even when the interview was brief, I had been overwhelmed by the mans sheer personality. I'd actually had a wild moment where I'd wanted to throw myself at his feet and confess everything, such was the mans presence.

Fuck my life.

The only good thing that came out of it was that it gave me the once in the lifetime chance to go clean. Start investing in legitimate business.

As for dear Merrix, he was fucked. Well and truly.

He had been arrested, accused of numerous charges including but not limited to, breaking the Treaty of Thronehold, causing a public disturbance, indecent exposure, and kidnapping a princess. Mara had been a very good girl. And an excellent actress.

Sadly, she's had to go back to her princess life, but at least she had been able to negotiate an agreement with King Boranel to remain in Breland and, continue her studies, for the next several years. She promised to keep in touch, and keep training to be a hero.

The rescued warforged had all ended in my care, drastically increasing our ranks and opening up new and exiting business opportunities. They all followed Rooks lead and were shaping up to be excellent minions. And as I said above, we got a substantial payment from the government to see to their welfare.

But now all that was over, and I was about to embark on my most ambitious project.

One that will hopefully make me a power in Sharn, and make the Lord of Blades and his fanatics think twice about attacking me or mine.

I was in a room we had rented for the occasion, in Mr Fleetfoot the half-lings inn.

His pretty young daughter walked around the table that dominated the center of the room, setting out drinks and flirting shamelessly with the people that sat around it.

And what a diverse bunch they were.

At the head of the table sat my own august self, with Indigo and Rook standing at my shoulders.

At my left sat an old changeling who introduced themselves at Pierce, with Conscript and another changeling standing at his/her? back. All three were in their base forms, with blurred features and pale albino white skin and snow white hair.

At my right sat Jag, the aberrant drgonmarked, with two of his own cronies standing behind him with their arms crossed across their chests and looking menacing.

And finally, facing directly across from me, were three hobgoblins.

And let me tell you, it took a supreme act of will to invite them to this meeting. But I did it because it had to be done. This had to be done properly.

"My friends," I leaned forwards and put my hands on the table. "I called you all here today because I have a dream. And a plan."

I looked around at the table. The changelings I had met through Conscript, and were members of the local changeling crime syndicate. One of the hardest to find criminal gangs. And Jag turned out to be a leader of House Tarkanan. A group of aberrant dragonmaked who had come together and were trying to emulate a mainstream dragonmarked house, only offering criminal services. Contacts I made thanks to my recent adventure.

And finally there were the hobgoblins.

I resisted the urge to leap across the table at them and focused on the greater good.

"My friends," I said again. "We all want one thing. To do business in peace. But we find ourselves increasingly interfered with by outside forces with political agendas. The fanatics who follow the Lord of Blades," I pointed at myself. "The nationalists out of Darguun," I pointed at the hobgoblins, and they nodded, albeit reluctantly. "The dragonmarked houses who think to enforce their law on us as these were the bad old days before Galifar," I pointed at Jag and his posse, getting more nods.

I spread my hands and leaned back, "They seem to forget, or not understand, that people come to Sharn to get away from all that bullshit!" More nods, this time more firm.

"So long as we fight among each other, they can put pressure on us individually and force us to bend to their whims, their agenda," I said. "But if we stand together? Then we're strong enough to resist them and do business in peace!"

"What exactly are you proposing?" Jag asked. "What do you mean? Work together?"

"Nothing too radical," I assured him. "I propose we all come to an agreement. That we strop fighting among ourselves and divide the city into territories each belonging to one group. And the others promise not to intrude into the others territory. And that we all work together to keep outside, political influences from interfering with our business!" I stood up and spread my hands wide. "I propose that we come together and take the underworld of Sharn! And that we rule it as the five families!"

"Aren't there are only four groups here?"

"Semantics!"

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And there is the story. I hope you guys enjoyed it! Please tell me what you guys thought of it. Good? Bad? Terrible? Needs improvement? All critiques are welcome.