Seersucker

Book 2 Ch 10: I Think We May Need to Split Up

Vampa looked up as Dantes approached, his eyes darting up and down as if assessing a threat and quickly determining there wasn’t one.

“Who are you?” he asked, as he began to unwrap the cloth he had around his hands.

“My name is Ed. I’m a friend of Vera’s. She asked me to bring you this.”

Dantes reached into his jacket and pulled out the folded piece of paper he’d been given. He held it out as Vampa met him at the bottom of the stairs. Vampa’s gait reminded ...

Book 2 Ch 9: Grinning Down at Them

Dantes watched incredulously, checking with the rats at the Vixen for just a moment. Things seemed to be going as they usually did, with a few early morning sailors pairing off with the girls. The goons seemed to have switched to watching things in shifts, with the one on the rooftop taking a nap, and the girl in the alley now inside for a drink.

He looked around. He was basically boxed in, and pushing his way out would draw a lot of attention to himself, so he resigned himself to watch...

Book 2 Ch 8: Take Care of the Girls

Dantes slipped past the watchers on the Vixen easily as a rat, and climbed up to the windowsill of his room where the window had been left cracked to allow Jacopo an easy entrance and exit as he wanted. Once inside Dantes did a quick search of the room as a rat before shifting back into his usual self. He quietly walked the room, collecting his things into his pack and lifting the floorboards to find the goods he’d hidden and packed them as well. Once he was done he gently opened his door a...

Book 2 Ch 7: Why did these things all seem to happen in waves?

Traveling through a tree was probably Dantes’ least favorite method of travel. He felt his sense of self momentarily disappear and become one with a kind of primal and natural force, before being flung back into oneness and reality through another tree across the continent. The first time he’d done it, he’d been unconscious, but losing that sense of self while aware was distinctly horrible and uncomfortable to him. So much so that when he landed in an abandoned square in Rendhold and fe...

Book 2 Ch 6: Welcome a brother

The group ate the meal together, some in silence, others with some light chatting. There was a comfortable familiarity to the group that Dantes sensed had been developed over many years. He himself felt like an interloper, but considering he’d been kidnapped and brought there he didn’t feel much awkwardness about it. He ate his own food quietly, listening to the other’s conversations and trying to absorb what he could about them. 

Jacopo sat next to him, nibbling some meat of...

Book 2 Ch 5: Why would I want to be anything other than a rat?

Dantes looked at Lorna and the strange green creature she’d called Beast as they moved to sit next to him. Her eyes were dark, almost black, and he found his own drawn to them. Like looking down a dark passage in the pit, and sensing something there that he couldn’t quite make out. 

“You said you think the Mother chose you for two reasons. You explained the first one to Murk, what was the second?”

“You have good hearing.”

“Yes.”

Dantes glanced at J...

Book 2 Ch 4: Plans to initiate. Old friends to kill.

As Dantes walked into the glade, he could feel the attention of the other druids slowly shift to him. The woman in the lake was the first to approach, pulling herself out of the water, with her strange creature in tow. She was nude at first, but then some kind of green plant spread across her flesh until it covered her like a dress, even weaving its way through her hair until it was pulled back from her face. He found himself a bit disappointed by that. She was much nicer to look at than Trai...

Book 2 Ch 3: This is all that remains

Dantes followed behind Murk and Traizen as they walked through the Veridian Expanse. Dantes had never been in a forest before, and found himself overwhelmed by it. The trees ranged wildly in size from small bushlike things, to some that seemed almost as mighty as the Mother’s Reach he’d planted. It was somehow both quieter and louder than Rendhold ever was. He found himself twitching and jumping at the sounds of frogs croaking and crickets rubbing their legs together. In Rendhold he’d s...

Book 2 Ch 2: The weak and the tainted

Dantes drifted in and out of consciousness for some amount of time between thirty seconds and five hours. He had flashes of consciousness in which he saw streets, abandoned buildings, and an old haggard tree that he could swear he watched two wolves walk into and after that there was just an overwhelming sense of green. When he fully regained consciousness he found himself tied to a tree. He looked around to see nothing but dirt, wood, bushes, and branches. He panicked for...

Book 2 Ch 1: Mondego, sir

Zak, Jayson, and Jayk sat on a too soft couch in an opulent parlor listening to the sounds of a man being beaten to death in the other room. They looked at the gaudy gold and purple curtains, the richly brocaded furniture, and the thick and heavily patterned carpet. Independent of one another the different pieces could be considered beautiful, but together they created a maddening mix of patterns that created a cacophony of visual noise. Jayk noted it immediately as the kind of thing that hap...

Ch 71: Dantes the Druid

Wayne brought down the axe with a grunt, taking a piece of the root that was attempting to sneak into the space closer to the maw. The root bled red, and began to shrink back. On either side of Wayne were other collared with axes. They’d been pruning the garden back in shifts for days, but it was still spreading, and every few days someone else wouldn’t return with the rest of the group.

Wayne took a few steps away from the hungry, twisting roots, and pulled a flask from his belt. H...

Ch 70: Sleep

Dantes poured what was left of Gaspard’s healing potion over his knuckles, wincing as the bones in them resealed and the scrapes stitched together. He pocketed the other two potions that were left over, and patted the pocket he’d stored the wand Gaspard had used in. He couldn’t tell exactly, but it felt as if it had maybe two charges left in it. He’d also found a small handful of gold. Between all those goods, the satisfaction of killing Gaspard with his bare hands, and the i...

Ch 69: It would make us feel better

Gaspard woke in the dark and for a moment, he wondered if he was dead. He didn’t feel any pain, which was a stark contrast to how he felt when he’d finally passed out. How he felt while Dantes was striking him. He tried to move, and found that he couldn’t. The feeling of ropes on his arms and legs straining against him helped him to realize that no, he wasn’t dead.

A single flame appeared at the end of a finger of bone, and descended in front of him onto the tip of a candle that...

Ch 68: Just a chat

“... And so the gnome sailor says to the orc, ‘I’ve never seen a man firmer in his beliefs’.” finished Dantes with a smile.

Sera’s face contorted as she tried to resist laughing, but holding it back just meant that it came out with a loud snort that drew the stares of people nearby. “That’s a terrible joke.”

“That’s what makes it funny,” replied Dantes with his mind's eye still watching Gaspard drunkenly sleep. “I learned that joke from Vera actu...

Character portraits

Hey everyone, 

I felt guilty posting self promo today without posting a little something extra. These are some character portraits I made using midjourney to put next to the character bios I have in my notes. They're not 100% accurate, but they're as close as I could get. Just thought you might enjoy seeing them (If they're wildly different to what you picture, then ignore them and go with that).

The Deadman Trilogy is complete!

Hey everyone,

Some of you are probably already aware of the series I was writing before Downtown Druid. Well, it's now completed, with all three book available on KU and audible.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CFD5MKS3?binding=kindle_edition&searchxofy=true&ref_=dbs_s_aps_series_rwt_tkin&qid=17...

Ch 67: Fell into my knife

Dantes shot up, breathing heavily and covered in sweat. He looked around the room, sensed the flowers on his windowsill, Jacopo stirring beneath the bed, and a solitary roach nibbling on some small crumbs he must’ve spilled as he’d snacked.

Tieara gave him a light kick with a short, but shapely leg before turning back over and swiftly returning to heavy snoring.

He silently left the bed and navigated to the bowl and mirror at the far end of the room. He took a small cloth, soa...

Ch 66: A silence hungry for words

Dantes came down early in the morning as he had the previous day. Creeping completely silently down the stairs and arriving to the sight of Tilly once again cleaning the floors. She was a very orderly sort. He’d noticed how immaculate she kept her bar, and everything in the Vixen seemed to run on a schedule she set.

Her ear twitched as Dantes arrived, she stopped her mopping, and gestured for him to follow her.

He raised an eyebrow, but complied. Pausing only to slip off his boo...

CH 65: Midtowner born and raised

It was very late when Dantes made it back to the Vixen, but not so late that it had closed for the night. He shifted back into his normal self in an alley a few blocks away. It took longer than it had the last few times, and was more painful. When it was over he collapsed, breathing heavily with sweat dripping across his body. That was the longest time he’d been in ratform, and apparently it came with consequences. He took a quarter hour to steady himself, but when he stood it was on shaky ...

Ch 64: Quick and dirty

Dantes skittered through the outskirts of Midtown with Jacopo, their small paws making little sound as they moved across the cracked and broken cobblestone streets. During the trek it had gotten dark, and a near full moon rose up over the high slum towers that lined the streets of midtown looking poised to fall. They didn’t need to go through the center of the district, as the guard station for midtown was the only one located on the border of the district rather than in the center of it. D...

Ch 63: One bite at a time

Dantes didn’t react, simply continuing his walk as if he hadn’t heard anything.

“How many?”

“Three.”

He looked at the window of a nearby pub and took note of the three men following him in its reflection. One of them he recognized immediately as being the man he’d had tossed out of the Vixen earlier in the day. Had he been following him for long? Or did he just happen to see Dantes when he’d come to the docks? 

He shook his head. He needed to be mo...

Ch 62: That's his perogative

Dantes watched the exchange between Ket and Pacha through Jacopo’s eyes with great interest. He’d remembered Zak telling him about Pacha back in the pit. A guardsman that was actually trying to clean up Midtown. Dantes expected the man would likely die long before he made any meaningful changes. That didn’t mean that he couldn’t get some use out of him first. Ket may also have his uses. Dantes already had an affinity for rats after all.

Dantes heard a cough, and looked over to s...

Ch 61: There's always some new vice

This wasn’t how Dantes had hoped his first day helping out at the Vixen would go, but he was unconflicted about how to react to someone attempting to slap him. He swung his left arm down where the man’s arm bent then threw a  punch, pointing the knuckle of his first finger, toward the man’s eye.

It struck true and the man dropped him, and Dantes immediately followed up his attack by grabbing the man’s shoulders and driving his knee into his crotch, hard.

The man crump...

Ch 60: I've had far worse habits

“You're late for breakfast,” said Vera from the head of the table, cutting into a heavily seasoned egg delicately with a knife and fork.

“Sorry auntie. Took a walk and got lost. Been a while since I’ve walked around the city.”

She raised an eyebrow, “You got lost?”

“Fine, I’ll be honest with you…I was starting a lovely little garden.”

There were some snickers at the table, but Vera just frowned. She could usually tell when he was lying. H...

Ch 59: I like what I like

Dantes woke the next day next to Alessa, and carefully got out of the bed so as not to wake her. She hadn’t wound up with much business, so he decided to help her out. He certainly had no motive of his own in the transaction. It was purely charitable. He poured a glass of water for her, and placed it by her on the side table. It was too early for even breakfast, but his body was still trained on his habit of rising early in the pit and jumping right into his usual activities.

He’d b...

Ch 58: Too surprised to be angry

Dantes walked into the Vixen with Jacopo tucked comfortably in one of his new jacket’s pockets. In the entryway, Alessa was leaning sultrily against a wall, her half-lidded orange eyes glancing up at him slowly.

“Oh, Edmond. I thought you were a customer.”

“Well, the day’s not over yet.”

She chuckled, and that turned to a cough.

Dantes politely waited for her to finish. “You alright?”

She nodded. “Just a stubborn cough. It was a bit better after...

Ch 57: Memento of a dear friend

“Wouldn’t it be flattering for a customer to drop his trousers? Means you did a good job on the scrims.”

“No. It would just mean I need to beat a half naked man. Unlike the women at the ‘Cruel Lady’, I wouldn’t get paid for it.” The man’s voice was neutral and deep, and he delivered the jest with a straight face and no hint of irony.

Dantes laughed. He didn’t even need to fake it to curry favor, it was a genuinely amusing remark. He’d never been to the ‘Cru...

Ch 56: He wanted them to know that they'd lost

Dantes pulled up his hood, and started walking down the street, keeping an eye on Mercedes from a distance. Two large men were following behind her, each of them carrying boxes and bags of what Dantes guessed were new clothes and jewelry. Mercedes had always had expensive tastes, but in the past she’d had to steal to satisfy them. Now it didn’t seem like that was as necessary.

She walked with a confident saunter, other pedestrians parting like fish in front of a shark. Until she ran...

Ch 55: That's not what your mother told me

Dantes stepped out of the Vixen and took a deep breath, savoring the slight taste of salt in the air and the morning breeze whistling through the alleyways. He hadn’t felt a breeze in a long time, it wasn’t something you realized you’d missed until you felt it again. He pulled up the hood on the graverobbed tunic, to both hide his face and keep his ears warm, and began walking toward Needle Street.

The first thing he wanted was a new jacket, he felt naked without one, and handicap...

Ch 54: You shouldn't, it's a lie

Dantes woke up on the floor. He’d moved there at some point during the night when he’d found the bed too soft to sleep on. He took a deep breath and took in his surroundings. Light coming in through the windows, the sleeping forms of an orc and a dwarf softly snoring in his bed, and Jacopo less than a foot from his face loudly chewing some leftover sweetmeats.

“Been awake long?” he asked, not out loud since he didn’t want to wake Alessa and Tieara, rather through the connectio...