“Aye captain, it seemed like the right thing to do!” The man who was speaking looked strong though ropey. He was naked above the waist, and his pants looked strange to Emile. It seemed like each leg was inside of its own oversized grey bag. He was dark skinned and had long greasy hair. A gold earring twinkled in the sunlight off the water. The man was called Montoya, but he had told Emile to call him Monty when she met him playing dice. He and the men he played with had all been sitting in the shadow cast by the sleek black ship, Duress.

The captain was a person unlike any Emile had ever seen before, though she knew right away she was an Otterman. She was covered in slick fur from head to toe, and had a long wide paddle like tail that was tapping impatiently on the deck of the ship. She stood barring Monty and Emile from crossing onto the ship from the gangplank. “Monty, whee in the se’en ‘ells di’ yeh thin’ tha’ bree’in’ a li’l ‘irl onna meh ship wa’ a ged idee?” Emile was struggling to understand her, she spoke very fast and with a strange accent. The captain did not look angry, although her facial expression was hard to read through all the fur.

Emile decided that it would probably be better if she just explained the situation herself, “I need to get to Two Lanes, and he said that that was where your ship was headed. I won’t be any trouble at all.” Emile’s voice had a soft edge to it, like a length of silk wrapped around someone’s throat.

“Oi! Net eeny treble eh? Sure yeh won’! Yeh ent gettin’ onna meh ship!” The captain looked down at Emile and her long whiskers twitched and then drooped when she saw Gypsum also standing on the gangplank, “An wha’ in ‘ell es tha’ thin! Sem grea’ bleddy lizar’!

Emile turned and looked back at Gypsum, then she looked at the captain again, “Please, we won’t be any trouble I promise, and Gypsum will even catch any rats you have on the ship, she’s better than a cat. Please! You’re already going to be going, you should let me ride along.” Emile was concentrating very hard on keeping her tone soft and polite. People always want to help if you’re polite. She was trying hard not to think about how much time had already elapsed since she’d left Kentvale.

“Ketches rats eh? Oy meet ken’setter it, oy meet indee’,” the captain dropped her voice conspiratorially and leaned so close to Emile that her long whiskers tickled Emile’s face, “yeh ken ride wit’ us eef’n yeh can pay. Two plet’num.”

Two platinum? That’s nothing. Emile was about to say that she would be more than happy to pay when she realized with mounting horror that of all the supplies she had packed for the journey, she forgot to bring money. No one has ever asked me to pay for anything! “I can pay,” Emile said, worrying, “I just need some time to go and get my money.”

“Meh ship es leavin’ at high tide. Wit’ or wit’out you!” The captain straightened up and pointedly tap on the deck of the ship with her tail a few times as if to punctuate her statement. Monty looked at Emile with an apologetic shrug and ran ahead onto the ship, quickly disappearing amidst all of the scurrying busy looking sailors.

Emile crossed the gangplank back onto the dock, and told Gypsum that she would need to stay by the ship. There were cargo boxes that didn’t seem like they were being loaded or unloaded, and so Emile told Gypsum to hide behind the boxes and wait for her. Then she made her way back across the dock into part of Puissant City that had overflowed the city walls and existed largely to service sailors.

Most of the buildings were very shabby looking, many of them with people strewn about on the street in front of them looking like they were sleeping. I wonder why they don’t sleep inside, I bet some of these are inns. Emile looked at one of the men who was sleeping, his head propped up on a pile of ropes. He was wearing only a ragged pair of short pants, and his skin had a sunburnt look that must have been painful. There was a strange and intricate tattoo surrounded by burn marks just above his forearm. Emile quickly hurried on away from the man when he stirred.

A very scantily clad woman was leaving against the wall of another building. The building itself seemed to be falling apart, the paint had become a sort of greyish no color and the woodwork around the broken windows looked like it would leave splinters in her hand. Emile approached the woman and asked, “Do you have any money?”

The woman jumped, looking startled, once she collected herself she responded, “No, and you shouldn’t be here this is a dangerous place, especially for a little girl.”

Undeterred Emile asked, “You don’t have any money at all?”

The woman stood up a little more properly and looked down at Emile beneath the swell of her enormous bosom. She looked very tired to Emile, her hair was a dingy yellow and looked unwashed, and her clothes looked like they may have been very nice once, but had been worn for a week without cleaning them, “Vance has all the money, I really don’t think you should be here, is your mother around here? You Sash’s girl?”

“I don’t know anyone named Sash. Where is Vance?” Emile’s eyes had lit up and she felt hope growing in her heart when she heard the phrase ‘all the money.’

“Vance is inside, you live in the city?”

“Oh no, I’m glad I don’t live here, this place seems terrible. So Vance is in there,” Emile pointed to the door behind the woman.

“Yeah Vance, he stays inside unless there’s trouble with the bait girl, hasn’t been none lately though what with the tax collectors and their thugs roaming up and down the docks.”

“Perfect, thank you! I’ll go and talk to Vance!” Emile moved as if you walk past the woman.

“You can’t go in there! Only johns and us working girls can go inside!” The woman gently caught Emile, her hand resting on the fine mail that covered Emile’s shoulder.

“I can go inside if you let me. I won’t be in there for long.” Emile pulled past the woman and spoke soothingly.

The woman seemed to be considering this for a moment and then finally she spoke again looking dreamy, “I guess if you are quick about it, but I don’t think Vance will like to see you in there.”

Emile opened the door with great care, noticing that it was only attached to the wall by the top hinge. She had thought the outside of the building was filthy but it did nothing to prepare her for what she saw inside. There appeared to only be one large common room separated into many smaller areas by semi-opaque screens that may have been white at one point. Behind the screens Emile could hear grunting and heavy breathing. Standing right at the entrance was a paunchy man whose stomach hung over his belt. His chest and belly were almost as furry as the Otterman captain’s had been, and he wore a big black beard that reached down to his waist. His hair was long and black and stringy on the sides and he was bald on the top with ugly warts all over his face. His nose was crooked and when he opened his mouth to yell at Emile she saw that he was missing almost all of his front teeth.

“What the fuck do you think you are doing!” A powerful stench seemed to follow each of his words on his breath as he moved quickly to intercept Emile. He was carrying a mean looking cudger like the one Emile’s father had kept behind the bar. “You turn around and get out of here right now, you little bitch! Where’s Claire? Who’s supposed to be watching the door!”

Emile took a step back not because she was afraid of the man, but because the stink coming off his breath made her stomach lurch like she was going to throw up. “Please, just calm down,” Her voice was soft and delicate, barely audible amidst all the sounds emanating from the chambers that were cordoned off with screens. “I just need to ask you something, you don’t want to yell.”

Vanced looked down at Emile, and he seemed to be weighing her worth with his dark eyes, they scanned her strangely armored head, and settled on each of her rings momentarily before returning to her eyes, “What are you doing in here?” He growled, still sounding angry but no longer yelling.

“I need money, and I was told that you had all the money.” Emile wanted to take another step back but the door had closed behind her and her back was almost up against it.

Vance spoke sounding wistful, “Ahh, so that’s how it is? You’re too young, come back in three or four years and I got a place for you. Where did you get those rings, did you steal them?” The man made as if to grab at her.

“They’re mine, and you don’t want to try and take them!” Emile spoke quickly, and the man reeled back as if he had been struck, “You want to help me though, don’t you?”

A glazed look crawled over Vance’s grizzled face, and when he spoke his words were thick, he sounded as if he was talking in his sleep, “Help you?”

“Yes, help me. I need two platinum, and you should help me get it. It’s for a good cause.” Emile was glancing behind the man’s back looking to see if anyone had heard the yelling and was going to come out from behind the screens to investigate.

“Ten gold a throw, got no platinum here.” The big man looked sad at this, “I only have gold.”

“Two hundred gold chips would be fine, Vance. Do you have two hundred chips?” The man turned started walking back to the chair he had been sitting on when Emile had walked in. He moved to chair aside and then removed three false floor boards. From the hole in the floor he produced a heavy metal box. He pulled a key on a long cord out from inside his pants, and opened the box with it. Emile had very slowly crossed the room towards him and leaned to look over his shoulder into the box. Hundreds of gold chips sparkled in the dim light and the man began counting them out one at a time onto the floor.

One of the screens slid open and man wearing the same sort of pants that Montoya had been wearing appeared followed by a woman wearing a crooked tiny little red dress. The man in the sailor’s pant said, “She said to pay you, not her.”

Vance did not look up from his counting, and when he didn’t answer again for a third time, the woman walked up to where Vance was counting, and tapped him on the shoulder, “Vance,” She said sounded somewhat angry, “Vance, what’s wrong with you!”

The sailor noticed Emile, and was looking back and forth between Emile and the man counting gold chips on the floor, “What kind of place you running here?” The sailor asked, “That girl looks like she hasn’t had her first blood yet.”

Vance was still counting, “One hundred sixty-four, one hundred sixty-five, one hundred sixty-six,”

The woman looked at Emile horror-stricken, and said, “What are you doing! Did you bewitch him?”

Emile shrugged and smiled nonchalantly, “He’s just counting me out two hundred chips, you didn’t have any platinum.”

“Vance! Vance!” The woman was shaking his shoulders now, “Vance what’s gotten into you!”

Emile said in a glossy voice, “You don’t want to shake him, you’re going to make him lose count.”

The woman looked as if she was going to try and shake him again, and then seemed to lose interest in it, “What do you need the money for?” She asked.

“I’ve got to get to Two Lanes, I need to get a wizard to help me pa. It’s going to cost me two platinum to get on the ship and I have to get there fast because my pa’s sick.” Her voice hitched as she said this, and she took a few deep breaths to steady herself.

The woman seemed to consider this for a moment and then said, “You can’t afford passage, and you think you’re going to be able to afford a wizard?”

The sailor was watching the scene unfold and seemed to be growing very tense. All of a sudden he jumped forward in a burst of speed and threw the door open. Then he was gone.

The woman had moved too slow to grab the sailor, she shrieked, “Vance! We got a runner, you gotta do something!”

“One hundred ninety-seven, one hundred ninety-eight, one hundred ninety-nine, two hundred!” He smiled triumphantly at Emile, and then suddenly seemed to hear the shrieking woman who was pointing at the door desperately. Moving far faster than most men his size, he was up on his feet, and out the door bellowing his cudgel held high.

Emile began scooping the gold chips from the floor into a small pocket on the side of her backpack. With a shrug and a sigh the woman knelt down to help her. “Good luck in Two Lanes, I’ve not heard much lately, ever since the king issued those edicts, there haven’t been many travelers up here from down that way.” They put the last chips in the pocket, and Emile fixed her bag back on her back.

Back outside Emile made her way through the docks back to the Duress. Gypsum was dozing in the sun behind the crates where Emile had left her. As Emile approached, she opened one eye lazily and lifted her green muzzle. Emile smiled warmly and the dragon rose, stretching and arching her back as she did.

They crossed the gangplank again, and as she reached the edge of the ship the captain jumped down from above and landed directly in front of Emile with a thud. Her whiskers twitching wildly she said, “Oi, righ’,” she leaned in very close to Emile’s face and whispered, “yeh ge’ the plet’num?”

Emile shifted her bag off of one of her shoulders, and brought it before her chest. She opened the small side pocket, and patted the bottom making it jingle audibly. “I got two hundred gold.”