“If you’re going to talk, get to talking.” Thozronnath growled at the Half-Orc crime boss. The mortal man still had his hands raised in deference, and seemed completely prepared to barter for his life. Two of his lieutenants turned bodyguards kept a well paced perimeter between the two men speaking, while the half-elf dropped back and tried to continue forcing open the door behind them should they need to escape.

“Right, Right, Heh” The mortal heaved a sigh, his armored shoulders slouching slightly as the air carried the tension from his body.

“Look, I’m not sure how we ended up on your bad side friend, but I’m a business man not a murderer. Whatever the problem is I’m sure we can work this out. Is this about money or something? Have one of my boys stolen something valuable from you?” he began stammering, moving with a false affectation to his voice as he was clearly trying to downplay the situation and cover his own skin as much as possible.

“No, actually, they tried to but I killed those guys as well” Thoz responded, causing the faintly off-green half-orc to drop another shade of pale.

“Actually, all in hand I’ve made quite the profit off this entire encounter. No, I’m here because your men attacking me let me know that you might have something I want. Something I need” The devil continued, his words rolling somewhere between a low purr and a growl as he began pacing the width of the room. Maintaining his distance from the enemy defense line the entire time.

“I deal in desired commodities all the time!” The half-orc schmoozed, applying more false confidence to a facade that was visibly crumbling to everyone in the room. “If there’s something you want, I’m sure that if we don’t have it we can get it, I’m in the business of making deals after all” the desperate pleading continued.

The Half-Elf behind him finally got the door open, and left it partially ajar rather than open it fully and risk inciting another conflict with the clearly angry devil. In that same moment of tension however, Prisaela and the remaining monsters outside must have made their way over the barricade though as they cautiously paced into the room. They must have heard the bartering before they approached though, as the trio was fully prepared.

They merely ambled in slowly, no weapons drawn or hostile stances struck. Uzdaax had his [Incorporeal] Skill deactivated, hovering menacingly (and visibly) over Prisaela’s left shoulder. Similarly, Prisaela had adjusted her current shapeshift disguise to appear more monstrous, though maintaining a certain level of distinctly feminine features. Her unnaturally sleek skin, and pale hair from her days as a skin shifter was back, now accompanied with a jagged smile splitting her from nearly ear to ear. It was almost akin to her vertical mouth as a doppelganger just slightly rotated. One could argue from a distance that she was still human, but up close it was just uncanny.

Following them up like a wave of acidic amber, dripping like congealed syrup, was Zildoxoxi, the decompressed slime looming to fill the doorway and sizzling the stone around him with a mild application of the [Corrosive] skill.

Terror had come calling for these mortals, nightmares made flesh were approaching from within their own stronghold, and now the only way out was either a chase through the cramped tunnel, or through the monstrosities before them. It was no understatement to say that they were terrified. Thankfully none of them wet themselves like Adam had, that was just embarrassing.

“Wonderful!” Thozronnath called out in a monotone voice, his hands clapping in front of him loudly and exciting a small jump from his negotiation partners.

“Everyone’s here now and we can get down to the real important parts.” The devil continued, a wide smile creeping across his face and exposing the razor sharp teeth that fell into neat rows behind his lips.

“Everyone I killed that worked for you had the same tattoo. I checked. Every single one of them had the same symbol somewhere on their torso, and I just want to know where you found that okay? Explain it to me and I can let you leave” Thoz offered, giving a false sense of hope to the mortals for a brief moment before yanking it away. “Refuse to cooperate and I’ll eat you. Literally. Lie to me and I’ll keep you alive and take turns feeding bits of you to each other. Do I make myself clear?” He asked, the final ultimatum excruciatingly clear to the humans that had seen enough blood and destruction over the past few hours to wonder if he could actually pull that off. It wasn’t an empty threat and they didn’t seem to want to risk it.

The half-orc stammered a few incoherent syllables before managing to even start something resembling a sentence.

“I don’t know! Truly, I have no idea where it comes from. I work for a guy out of the north, He sends letters down from Daskaora. The whole thing is signed with an initial only, I’ve never seen his face, but he keeps the money flowing and when I tried to swindle him and ignore the orders he found out. Money dried up, and three of my guys wound up dead in their sleep. He fucking knows things man, I don’t know how. I just send what he tells me where he tells me, honestly” The half orc started stuttering and stammering in a rambled self defense as he practically bared his organizations entire details to this enemy. Thoz appreciated a human who knew just how fragile and disposable their life was.

Either the half-orc gave the information here, or Thozronnath continued to murder his way through criminal organizations until someone knew something. It was more work for the devil, sure, but it wasn’t like he didn’t enjoy it enough to do it anyway.

“If you’re sending things his way, then I take it you have an address of some kind then?” Thoz growled slowly, turning up the pressure as he took a few tentative steps towards the encircled crime boss.

“Yeah, They’re out of Krora somewhere and I send things to a courier office, I can tell you where, just please stay over there” The half-orc begged. Thoz debated for a moment but eventually just sighed and put his hands up, taking a few steps back to allow the humanoids to relax.

“I want that address and any other information you have in writing, once I’ve got that I’ll be on my way, just going to walk back out the way I came and leave you all to your business, okay?” He offered, dropping his voice down into a more gentle tone as if negotiating with someone keeping hostages rather than his own taken hostages.

The shaky mafia boss stumbled over to a nearby desk and began rummaging through it for something to write with.

Once he finally found a quill and a relatively unused piece of parchment, he scribbled and scrawled out every detail he could think of in the moment before practically hurling the page across the room. Clearly not wanting to get any closer to the devil than necessary. Unable to read, Thozronnath handed the page to Prisaela in a feigned show of superiority, when the doppelganger nodded confirmation a moment later that was all he really needed.

“We’ll be leaving now, back the way we came. I’m going to take whatever I want on the way out, and if you want to live as badly as I think you do I suggest we don’t see each other again. Bye now.” he offered in parting, turning sharply towards the door and leading his companions out of the office.

On his way out of the underground compound Thoz finally took the time to look over the last batch of defenders he had ignored so summarily earlier in the fight. There were several well equipped fighters and archers laying dead in the dust, what few casters were present were being actively ignored.

Scouring through their belongings, Thoz gained a few more bundles of coins, and was surprised to find that very few of them used shields. Thoz had a reason, what with his shapeshifting sword and all, but people using one handed swords and no shield felt strangely inefficient.

Several of the more robust human men were sized appropriately for Thoz’s form. Few of them are holding functional armor anymore.

The best Thoz was able to fit to himself was a working set of metal plated greaves and vambraces, and a loose chain shirt.

The devil was utterly delighted. Finally armor of his own.

When the group of monsters exited the basement, Adam the coward was nowhere to be found and Thoz made a note to hunt him down and kill him at some point in the near future. Today though, it was approaching morning. Uzdaax had to activate his incorporeal skill and rush back to their room at the inn due to the growing discomfort of prolonged sunlight, while Prisaela and Thoz carried a backpack full of coins to Outpost Omega hoping to get Zak the clerk to consolidate them.

Several hours later the quartet of monsters would reconvene in the Inn to discuss their level ups and evolutions, now fabulously wealthy by their previous standards.

Currency:

(after conversion)

Iron Coin: 5x

Copper Coin: 8x

Silver Coin: 1x

Gold Coin: 85x