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[b][u][center]A Whole New Party

Part 1

for Engy

by Draconicon[/center][/u][/b]

Audron remained in the temple until the party of evil-doers started walking further into Lork-Lund. They hadn't seen him, as far as he was aware, and that meant that he had a chance to sneak up on them. Probably could have done that anyway, all things considered; they looked like the sort of party that was better at fighting off waves of helpless villagers than dragons.

[i]Then again...[/i]

The wizard had casually thrown a fireball against their target, and a powerful, enhanced one, at that. He had felt it ripple through the ground and the temple itself had been shaken from the explosion. That meant that the wizard, at least, had power to throw around, and he had to be careful around the orc. The others, however, were still new to him, and that meant -

He froze, a slow grin rising on his face as he realized just what that meant. It was time to play the sneaking game and spy on them. Considering that he was just about the best at that particular 'game' of his age group, he doubted that the mortals would notice what he was doing, and it would be a great way to find out how to tempt them into his little challenges and trials.

As he pulled his robe closed, he couldn't help but imagine the whole Claiming process. All dragons dreamed about how they would play with the mortals, how they would go about either tempting their chosen mortals down the path of service or capturing them and making them into their minions. The Claiming process was meant to chain those that the dragon chose to their service, usually - but not always - willingly in the case of the metallic dragons like himself and his family. He, however, had options.

By going after an evil party, it meant that he could try different things, and more than that, be just a little meaner than he would otherwise be. If he had been trying this with a better, nicer party, then that would mean sticking to the rules of offering them fair pay, keeping them informed of what was happening to them - to a point - and generally ensuring that they were given all the chances that they could to back out of it. After all, platinum dragons were supposed to be the [i]good[/i] guys.

But he was dealing with an evil party, and a [i]very[/i] evil party at that. As long as he wasn't outright cruel with them, he could mess with them a lot more, and despite the lectures every dragon received on 'proper' behavior, he was rather looking forward to it.

[i]Okay, staying human, that's a given. Bigger hood? Oh, yeah, definitely a bigger hood,[/i] he thought, dragging at the back of his robe and pulling it up and over his head. It draped down further than normal, came forward enough to cut into his peripheral vision, but that was fine. He had plenty of other senses that would keep him informed of what was happening around him, and it meant that he could get rid of some of the squished-face feelings that he was going through. He grabbed his nose and dragged it and his lips out again. Not as far as he liked, but by an inch or so, which relieved so much pressure that he groaned out loud.

The orcs in the temple cocked their heads to the side, almost as if they were waiting for an order, but he waved at them to continue tending to their captain. They were of very little concern to him now. All of his attention was on his new toys just outside.

[i]Robe, check. Belt? Yes, check,[/i] he thought, tightening that around his waist. [i]Boots?[/i]

He looked down at his toes. If he had been still walking around on scaly feet, he would have considered going barefoot, but there was a thing among humans and the other quick-lived that preferred one to go shod. He sighed, snapping his fingers, using a transmutation spell to turn a couple of rocks into boots before sliding them on.

With all that done, he felt like he was properly equipped to fool the evil party into thinking that he was a human. As long as his hood stayed down - and why would that fly back - he would be able to pass as one of them. Mortals, and particularly the quick-lived, respected age, so he should be able to get them to do more or less what he wanted. All he had to do was -

Right, they were walking away. Audron slapped his forehead. He needed to get moving before they were out of sight. Darting out of the temple, he looked down the road, realized that they'd disappeared, and started running.

#

Viola Warsin was the head of their little band, and she hated the job. That said, she kept it because all of her teammates would just do a worse job.

Kyo'Thar had just proven that by torching the bounty they were after. Luckily, they had been able to find a finger that would prove that it had belonged to their target rather than just to some random schmuck in the road, but that was still stupid on his behalf. The fact that the orc had been irritated since he woke up on the wrong side of the bed that morning, all over the fact that he had been paid in a different spellbook than he had asked for, didn't fly for her. If she stepped down and [i]he[/i] stepped up, murder might not be the order of the day, but it wouldn't be far from it.

Worse, the number of screaming experiments would go up. She limited him to three of those a month, just because he got pissy if she didn't let him play with his magic on some of their victims, but she liked to [i]sleep[/i] at night, thank you very much, and the sound of screaming captives didn't help with that.

That said, he would be the best replacement if she ever got fed up. Mandred Katar lived up to his nickname of Red-Arms, and his fury [i]would[/i] make murder the order of the day. As for Olfel Darkbeard...

She glanced over her shoulder at the dwarf, watching as the four braids of the banished flicked back and forth against his chest. Viola didn't trust Olfel as far as she could throw him, but he was a useful source of information. If you believed what he said - and she didn't - he used to be the spymaster for one of the dwarf nobles off in the north, someone that gathered information and still had a ring of spies out in the world gathering even more than they used to. She didn't know how much of that was true, but he had yet to come up dry with the things that they needed to know.

That said, he was an asshole. Not because of his sadism - though he had his share - but because he knew how to shame someone else. He gloated whenever he did it, taking pleasure from putting other people down, showing them how much he knew about them and how little protection they had against his knowledge of secrets. He would even make up things in hopes of shaking someone so bad that they broke.

He tried it with her once. She punched him in the teeth for that, and he never tried it again.

"We're actually getting paid for this one, right?" Mandred asked.

"Provided that they can identify the target from a fingerprint..." She narrowed her eyes at the silent, austere orc, though the wizard ignored her. "Some people seem to believe that all the guilds can just scan remains and know who it was. Not all of them are that good, numb-nuts..."

Once more, no response, but she was used to that. She was mostly venting the frustration that came with dealing with the psychopaths that she had to push forward. Not that she wasn't kinda nuts herself - she'd been through enough 'clarity of mind' style spells that let her see the truth about herself to forget that - but she was the least nuts of the bunch. All of them had their problems, but she could think clearly enough to keep them from getting out of hand enough to deal with an army of guards.

Most of the time. There was that incident at the capital last year, but she was pretty sure that had been forgotten about after this long.

They kept marching, only for her to feel something prickling at the back of her neck. She didn't look around, didn't show any kind of paranoia - that kind of thing got you killed - but she did flex one hand into a fist. Olfel noticed, and fell back just a half-step, then another half-step, allowing his dwarf stature to slowly carry him towards the back of the party. It was easy enough to make it look like they were picking up speed and the dwarf was being left behind, and if she was right, whoever was following them would be stupid enough to not realize what was actually happening.

#

Audron didn't know why the group hated each other so much. Even as he darted from alley to alley, moving from house to house, he could see how much they despised one another. There was an angry aura off of each and every one of them, one that burned through the evil aura that he had detected the first time that he had looked at them. It was like someone had forced all four of them together and was now making them stay that way out of some sort of horrible punishment. Whoever had come up with that idea had probably had a horrible sense of humor, considering the four adventurers looked like the sort that would kill each other given half a chance.

They didn't even have a hint of consideration for the dwarf as they started outpacing him, pushing forward and leaving the dark-bearded dwarf behind. He shook his head, but he didn't stop following the main group, his ears perked up under the hood to try and get eveyrthing that they were saying.

It was mostly recriminations, things that sounded like they were insulting each other constantly, but he could make out a few things regarding 'pay' and 'bounty'. So, he had been right. Those sheets of parchment that the woman had pulled out at the start had been for bounties, checking to make sure that they were getting paid.

[i]Huh. Wonder if they're always hunting, or if they do the dungeon-diving too?[/i]

He imagined they did. He couldn't believe that they had gotten rich enough to get all the stuff they were carrying just hunting down individuals in the wide world. They probably -

He blinked, realizing that the dwarf had fallen so far behind that he had outpaced the little guy. Audron paused, looking back the way he'd come, only to see the dwarf hustling by him. It was like the dwarf was jogging just to keep up with the rest of the group, and he shook his head in sympathy.

It was only when the dwarf rejoined them, stepping inside a larger, three-story building, that he realized that his pockets felt lighter.

#

"Well, well, well..."

Viola sighed, counting to twenty as her people had conditioned her to do when she got angry. The whole training to be an officer had been damn stupid, most of the lessons going either over her head or into the trash, but that one had been drilled into her a hundred times over, always demanded that she take that time to still her anger and make herself calm again. It didn't stop her from killing her teachers at the end of the training, of course, but she did it calmly. Happily, too.

"Yes, Darkbeard?" she muttered.

"Our little tail has quite a bit of money to him."

"Yeah? How much?"

"Twenty platinum in his left pocket, and a few scraps of parchment, too. Quite interesting, if I do say so myself."

That got the attention of her and the other two members of the team. They slowly turned to look him in the eye, the dwarf juggling the twenty different coins between his fingers. They moved too quickly for anyone else to see, and from a distance, it would have looked like silver, but twenty platinum? That was almost as much as they would get for this bounty.

"Who's the idiot following us with that much money in his pockets?" she muttered.

"Someone that looks like an easy mark," Mandred said. "Is he still out there? I imagine I could kill him and take the rest in his other pockets."

"Hold it, hold it," Viola muttered. "Something's off here."

"Yes, I agree." Olfel caught the coins and pocketed them in the same motion. "Something strange, something different about this robed man. So quick on his feet, but so stupid about the world. He could have climbed those houses with ease, the way he walked, but he didn't understand how to keep his pockets safe. I imagine that he's about to start howling when he realizes how short on money he is."

"Get to the point, Darkbeard," she muttered. "Kyo'Thar, get the bounty."

"Hmmph."

The orc walked off, leaving the three of them at the door. Viola cracked the door open again, letting it look incidental, and glanced outside.

Yes, there he was. Green-robed, pacing back and forth between the alleys across the street, was their tail. He obviously thought that he was being sneaky, but there was something off about him, something that seemed not quite right.

"You're right. He's...weird."

"Yes, isn't he? But quite the mark." Olfel chuckled. "If I don't miss my guess, and I seriously doubt I do, I imagine that he's here to hire us for something."

"Nobody hires us directly anymore," Mandred said, shaking his head. "They're too afraid."

"Ah, but those are the smart ones. Stupid ones, like this man? Look at the way he walks. Well-trained, but he's never been on the streets in his life. I imagine this is a young noble, someone from the ivory towers or some isolated place. He doesn't know how to conduct himself in the streets, doesn't know what it means to be smart, doesn't know how to not take the risks that he's taking. He's here either to prove himself, or because he's stupid enough to want a thrill hiring someone that will do anything."

Viola wasn't completely convinced that Olfel was completely correct, but she had the feeling that he was on the right track. There was something different about this man, as she had already noted, and there was that odd dychotomy to how he moved, how he made his way from alley to alley.

[i]Dumb and smart at the same time...[/i]

Still, if he had money, that meant that he could be profited from. They needed money, and considering that he had twenty platinum rolling around as loose change, that meant that he probably had more. If he had something for them, it'd be worth listening.

And if it all went to hell, they could kill him. That was simple enough.

#

Audron couldn't believe that his pocket was empty. He'd been feeling sorry for the dwarf, and the thrice-damned MIDGET had gone and picked his pockets. The dragon in disguise wanted to scream, wanted to rant and rage, but he knew enough to keep himself calm.

Not necessarily quiet, though, as he ducked down one of the alleys after pacing around all the time and started bonking his head against the wall. He had just enough dragon to his features to do it a bit harder than perhaps he should, grunting every time that he made an impact.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid," he muttered under his breath, groaning to himself. "You let someone take twenty platinum, just like that..."

Not to mention the little scrolls of power that he had kept in there. He'd had those as an incentive for the wizard, but...well, maybe they were just enough obscured that nobody would be able to read it. Draconic wasn't [i]that[/i] common a language among the quick-lived, and he had other reasons to believe that they wouldn't be useful.

But if he was going to Claim this quick-lived party, then he needed to start getting on with it. They had to know that he was sneaking along behind them now, and that meant that they would start thinking he was interested. He had to start putting on some evil characteristics or something, rather than looking like some clueless dragon. He needed to actually have a lie prepared this time, rather than just coming up with something on the spot.

Contrary to the belief of some of his uncles, he [i]could[/i] learn from his mistakes. He just usually didn't.

Audron took a deep breath, rubbing his face to get rid of the building-dust that his scales had been coated in from repeatedly bonking his head against the wall. He knew that there was going to be a mark on the building, but hopefully whoever lived in it wasn't that bothered. Pulling his hood down just a bit further, he turned -

"Whoa!"

Only to jump back a pace as the four evil adventurers stood at the end of the alley, all of them fixing him with a stern stare. He held up his hands in the universal 'wait, don't hurt me' gesture by complete accident, and that, more than anything, probably sold his story. The human woman at the front of the group brushed her hands against her breastplate, clearing his throat as she looked down at him.

"You're looking to hire someone, I'm guessing?" she asked.

"Uh...um...yes?" Audron cleared his throat. "Uh, hehe, I mean, yes, of course. Plenty of use for a bunch of, uh, morally loose adventurers...yes?"

[i]...Okay, that was terrible.[/i]

It was a bad choice of voice, bad choice of 'character' to play, and it was a really, really bad choice of what kind of approach he wanted to take with the adventurers.

Or so he thought. The dwarf started to smile, and the human woman sighed.

"Do you want to buy our services or not?"

"Um...Yes?"

"Yes or no?"

"Yes! Sorry, sorry. I feel like I'm being tested here."

"You are. And you are being judged a moron," the orc said. "Must we listen to this drivel?"

"Shut up." The human woman shook her head, looking at him again. "We're not dealing in names, I'm guessing?"

"No, not at all." Particularly as he hadn't come up with a human name just yet. Something else to do with the next character that he played, the next person that he pretended to be around the party. "Look, uh, I think we're getting off on the wrong foot. How about, instead of me -"

"How about you cut to the chase and tell us what you want, before I have Red-Arms punch a hole in your chest and rip out your heart?" the woman asked.

He glanced at the other human in the group. That one had his arms down, looking relaxed for the moment, but there was a mad tension in his eyes, something that spoke of an aggression begging to be released. Audron didn't fear it so much - he was a dragon, after all - but he knew that he should, so he belatedly shivered as if just realizing the danger he was in.

That, at least, he managed to sell.

"Right, um...right. I know what I want from you."

"You better. You can pay, I'm sure. Unless Olfel got everything off you?" the woman asked.

"Um...he got part."

"Not all of it, then."

"No. Not all of it."

He reached into his pocket, rooting around through a portal spell back to his personal hoard allowance. His mom said that he could have a few hundred platinum a month, and right at that moment, he needed all of them that he could offer. He couldn't imagine this group going anywhere for less than a hundred.

[i]Hopefully that will sound like a lot...[/i]

Audron was about to pull his hand back with a sample of the coin when the monk disappeared, zipping forward. Just like that, Red-Arms was standing right in front of him, stiff fingers pressed a half-inch from Audron's heart. Or at least, from his human heart. The disguised dragon stopped on the spot, staring down at the fingers, knowing that they could stab right through his disguise.

"And what is that?" the human asked. "Please, draw a weapon. I would be happy to take your arm as payment..."

"Red-Arms."

A flash of utter fury appeared on the red-armed man's face, but then he flickered, moving backwards, standing with the group again. Clearly, he had speed, and not all of it was natural. Audron was rather surprised...and he also rather admired that. It was something that he could happily use for himself, once he had them Claimed. Someone that could move that fast would be rather useful.

"Tell us what the hell you need doing, and [i]then[/i] you pay us," the woman said.

"Oh, uh...right."

That was how it worked? He thought that he'd give the money and then - but of course. Tell them what it was, haggle and - Gods, he was dumb sometimes.

#

[i]Gods, this guy is dumb.[/i]

She had expected someone that had never made a contract in his life, but this took that and ran with it to the nth degree. If it hadn't been for the fact that he was so clueless, she was sure that Red-Arms would have scared him off. If he had, she would have beaten his ass down the street for getting rid of the first real mark that they'd found in the last week. If he had twenty platinum just rolling around in his pockets, then he deserved to have some of that taken off his person.

But murder like that would get the guards on their collective asses, and she didn't want to cut them out of using Lork-Lund as a crossroads. Too hard to get places when you got banned from those villages. So, she'd at least hear this guy out before seeing what her other options were.

"Well?" Viola asked.

"Oh, um, right. Just one question. Do I get the spells back?" he asked. "I think your dwarf took those as well as my coins. I know I can't get that back - finders keepers and all - but can I get the spells back?"

It was more than slightly surprising that this stranger had the guts to ask for something that big, but she glanced at Kyo'Thar anyway. The orc looked down at her with a slight sigh, then reached into his robes, pulling out the shreds of parchment.

"I suppose he might as well. I cannot read them; the handwriting is terrible."

"...I get that a lot," the robed stranger said.

She arched an eyebrow. If he had been the one to make the scrolls rather than just carrying them, then perhaps he wasn't quite so bumbling, after all. Then again, he might have been nothing but a scribe. She shrugged, taking the shreds of parchment and handing them over.

"Now, the assignment."

It was getting on her nerves not hearing what it was. She was intrigued almost in spite of herself, considering how fucking weird this was. She'd thought that they'd just find out what he wanted, decline, and then mug him for the platinum, but at this point, she was half-convinced that she'd go on a rat-hunting trip. Something about this weirdo was starting to get under her skin, intriguing her more than it should, and she wasn't entirely keen on it.

"Right, right. I, uh, want you to go out there. To the Depths of Dalomar -"

"Dalomar's Depths," Olfel corrected.

"...I thought that it was called the orc name out here?"

"Yes, but the dwarves discovered it, so [i]our[/i] name takes precedence."

The robed figure nodded his head a few times, almost as if fascinated by that particular thing. Viola didn't have the patience for linguistic lessons.

"Moving on. You want us to go there and do what?"

"Oh, uh, just do the dungeon crawl."

"...Do the dungeon crawl."

"Yeah, uh, there's a big artifact down at the bottom of the dungeon now. Some rich guy willed it to be put down there, and his servants put it down there and - uh, they all died. I need someone to go in there and get it all out."

"...You're paying us to do a fetch quest," she said.

"In a dungeon!"

"It's a fetch quest. That costs extra."

"Why?'

"For the annoyance factor."

"...Fine. How's, uh, one hundred platinum?"

She kept the best poker face that she could. Olfel did the same, but she could tell that Mandred was having a hard time keeping it to himself. For all that he had been trained as a monk, he had [i]no[/i] idea how to demonstrate self-control when it came to getting something that he wanted. He was on the verge of blowing it, of making the stranger offer something less. She slid slightly sideways, blocking the rich guy from seeing whatever was crossing Red-Arm's face.

"I think that'll be fine."

A hundred platinum would pay their expenses for the week and then some. Even split four ways, that was enough to keep them swimming in whatever they needed for food and drink and more afterwards, or get their gear further enchanted, or...well, just about anything, really. A fetch quest this might be, and the Depths of Dalomar were definitely a trip and a half, but fuck. She'd go halfway to the far end of Orc-Land if that meant getting that much pay.

"We'll head out tomorrow," she said.

"Oh, um, could you go today? I can throw in another twenty plantinum for that."

"...Olfel?"

"I can make it work," the dwarf said.

"You got a deal, kid." She couldn't quite stop the grin crossing her face as she offered her hand. "You've got yourself a fucking deal."

#

Audron wasn't sure just why the party had been so happy to take the quest once he mentioned how much he was giving them, but he wasn't going to question it while they were in town. The platinum dragon shook on the deal, making sure that they didn't see his own grin as they took the coins and walked off, and he just watched them go until they were [i]well[/i] out of sight.

Even then, he didn't completely give in to his desires to jump for joy. He could feel that there was a spell in his immediate vicinity, and he felt around for it, pinching the air. Eventually, he found the listening spell that the orc had left behind on one of the bricks in the wall of the building next to him, and he pulled the brick free. Much to the shouted consternation of the woman living in the building, he reared back and tossed the brick as hard as he could. Considering the fact that he had the ability to put his dragon strength behind the throw, that was pretty darn far, indeed.

He smiled as it made a twinkling show in the distance, and then, finally, he tossed his hand in the air and jumped for joy.

"YES!" he shouted at the top of his lungs.

"Hey! Give me that brick back!"

"Sorry, can't, gotta run."

Audron didn't know how long it would take them to get to the Depths, but he knew that it would be a lot better for him to get there first. The whole of the plan he'd come up with involved getting there before the adventurers did.

One of the many methods of Claiming involved a slow breaking-down of the people that they were trying to recruit. He was trying to do that a bit faster, but he felt that the method could be adapted. Taking over a local dungeon and posing as the main creature in charge of it was usually a good way to get started, particularly as it meant that he could take the time to start filling the dungeon with all kinds of traps. Some would weaken the mind, some would tire the body, but all of them would remind the adventurers of just how much weaker they were than the monsters that they needed to go out and fight. He would let that keep going for a while, and then, at the end of it all?

He'd die. Oh, not him, personally, but the character he was playing in the dungeon. That monster, that dragon would die, they'd head out with all the loot that he'd trapped, and they'd start slowly changing. They'd be empowered, but they'd also slowly be falling more and more into devotion for dragons in general. It would take longer for an evil party, of course, but he was pretty sure that he could up the power level on that enchantment. Call it something like rehabilitation and he was pretty sure that it would be fine with the higher-ups in the Dragon Realms.

But for that, he had to get to the Depths before they did and start setting things up. But that couldn't be that hard. They were all quick-lived, and that meant that they would be walking. Walking was slow, and he? He could run.

Audron could not stop smiling, and as he walked towards the edge of town, he was already fantasizing about what he would do in the dungeon and how he would set it up to make sure that they all began their trip to becoming his. That evil party, with all its power, would soon be his happy, loving minions. They would be his Claimed.

#

"You trust that guy?" Olfel asked as they mounted up at the inn.

"Not a bit. But his coin's good," Viola said.

They'd gotten it checked at a banker just in case it was a whole lot of bullshit, but not only was the platinum good, it was higher-quality than the average coin that the banker had seen before. They'd been able to get a better than average exchange rate on it, and they were all but swimming in gold.

That said, she was sure that there was something fishy about this, which was why she wanted it done fast. No need to take it slow, though. The Depths were a simple dungeon, something that normally went ignored after one reached a certain level of strength and power.

[i]Loaded with platinum and can't buy an army to go down there?[/i] She shook her head as she got comfortable on her horse. [i]Something's wrong with that guy.[/i]

Shaking her head, she pulled on the reins, dragging her horse back from the edge of its feeding trough. It complained with a whinny, but she gave it another pull, and it huffed and obeyed.

"We should reach the Depths by noon tomorrow, if we keep up a good pace," she said. "I don't want anyone falling behind, so anyone need something, say it now. Kyo'Thar, you're tied in to make sure that you can sleep tonight?"

"Hmmph. Yes."

"Olfel, all the gold's properly hidden?"

"Four portable holes, stashed appropriately."

"Red-Arms?"

He nodded, opening a pocket in his leather vest. Three stones slowly floated out and started spinning around his head. They were specialized items that allowed him essentially an uninterrupted view in all directions, as well as giving him his own vision. It meant that he could spot everything, so long as he wasn't actively fighting. He was their secret weapon when they were on the road, ensuring that nobody could sneak up on them.

He took point in their little formation, with Olfel behind him, Kyo'Thar after that, and her in the very back. She tugged on her sword over her shoulder - one of many weapons she carried - and ensured that it was ready to pop free at the first pull if someone threatened her. When it was properly positioned, she patted her horse on the neck.

"Alright. Head out, everyone. And if anyone pussies out before we get to the boss, I'd better see that you're on death's door. Otherwise, I'm cutting your head off and taking you back to the cleric for a resurrection myself. Move out."

And with that, the party of evil made their way out of Lork-Lund, heading to the mountains off in the distance. The faster they got this done, the faster they got paid. After all, the platinum might be the majority of their paycheck this time, but that didn't mean that there wasn't a shit-ton of gold and treasure and magic items. New adventurers would pay their life savings for those.

[b][u][center]The End[/center][/u][/b]

Summary: Audron and Viola, the head of the evil party from the prologue, bargain with each other for the services of the evil party.

Tags: No sex, dragon, human, dwarf, orc, D&D, fantasy, series, surprise, disguise, magic, dungeon crawl, comedy,