Chapter 32: DD2 Chapter 026 – Sing

“I’m not doing it, and you can’t make me,” Melitte said, crossing her arms defensively over her ample chest. The lace and silks that went into the small slip of fabric that the blonde woman dared to call a bodice was truly a magnificent creation if only for how the delicate fabrics seemingly defied gravity. If Eliza was newer to Rhelea then she would have been amazed at such a thing, but she had seen skill-stitched clothing before, and the bard could only wonder if offering up that much cleavage could ever be worth it in such wintery weather.

“I’m not trying to force you into anything,” Eliza explained. “I’d do it myself if I thought it would work, but we both know he doesn’t see me like that.”

“Don’t treat me like an idiot Eliza; I have a high charisma score too, you know. I can practically see you flexing your skills. We both know how much of a choice normal people have when we lean into our stats like that,” the woman said condescendingly. “And don’t try to make me pity you. Nobody sees you like that. Why you ever bother making yourself look so pretty I’ll never understand, not with how dead that thing between your legs is.”

“Really, Melitte?”

“...You’re right. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that,” the entertainer apologised with a quiet sigh, before she stood up from her chair and began pacing the length of her office. “I haven't seen you for years, and now you show up on my doorstep asking me to do this.”

“You know why we haven’t seen each other it’s—”

“Because you think you’re too good for me? Now that you make your living singing for him, while I still do his whoring,” she spat.

“No!” Eliza said, aghast. “It’s because it’s too dangerous for us to be seen together.”

“Goblinshit! You can tell yourself that all you want, but he doesn’t care! You keep your distance because that's the way you like it!” Melitte yelled accusingly.

She wanted to refute it, but Melitte wasn’t entirely wrong. Eliza was a good-times girl, she was always there for the party, but when things got real she... detached. The threat of Riyoul’s ire was a convenient excuse for her to stay away from the only other people who understood what she was going through. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to bond over their shared pains and fears, but she was deathly afraid that if she knew them better, that she wouldn’t be able to do the job Riyoul kept her alive for.

Not that it matters now.

The bard was in a private room in the Moonlit Rose, the finest brothel on the Row, although that boast grew less impressive by the day. It looked like Melitte’s establishment would soon be the only part of the Row that remained once Lord Traylan’s engineers had finished levelling the rest of the street to make room for more ‘upstanding’ businesses within the inner walls of the city. Eliza knew Melitte well, far better than she would have liked from her time before Riyoul. She knew that there was nothing upstanding about the diminutive woman, besides her natural grip on finances and self-preservation.

“This isn’t a good time to be doing away with him,” the entertainer said, worrying her painted bottom lip between her teeth.

“You can say his name, you know,” Eliza responded. “And what do you mean this isn’t a good time?”

“Things are bad Eliza. I don’t know if you’ve been too self-absorbed to notice, but even the Rose is having trouble. Giving up the protection of an iron ranker, now of all times, is just stupid.”

“You’re being melodramatic. The Rose has other iron rank clients, even lesser nobles and officers from the guard come here.”

“The guard is honestly half the problem. Almost all of my old regulars are out since that damned dragon smashed up the keep, and the new officers are so painfully fresh to their warrior classes that they haven’t got a handle on them yet,” Melitte explained, rubbing her temples as if to dispel a headache. “They're all just a bunch of youths lurching about looking for a fight to satiate all their classes' urges.”

“And what? Riyoul the mass murderer is going to protect your business?”

“No, but his reputation keeps the worst of them in line. We’re not the only ones who fear a blade in the dark.”

Melitte let her words hang in the air for a while before she went to pour herself a drink from a cabinet in the corner of the expansive room. The clink of ice against glass was soon followed by a generous sloshing of what Eliza knew to be an expensive liquor far above her modest means. She felt her own mouth moisten in anticipation, the urge to drink herself into a stupor rather than persist with her near-suicidal venture presented itself and was then abruptly dismissed when the entertainer finally closed the door to the cabinet. The shorter woman returned to her seat with only one glass for herself, and Eliza ignored the slight, remembering her pain from before and allowing it to harden her resolve.

“What’s to stop me from just taking this and telling him everything?” Melitte asked.

“Nothing. But you know I’m right. He’s replacing me, and sooner or later he’ll replace you too,” Eliza said. There was the temptation to use her skills, to try and force more emotion through her voice, but she realised that she didn’t have to.

It was already there.

“You must have seen how his eye has wandered lately. How he looks at the other girls on the Row, eyeing them up to serve as your replacement,” she went on, speaking with a conviction she never knew she had, about things she could easily predict, but could not know.

“He wouldn’t do that. I’ve been nothing but loyal!”

“We both know that he would. Your loyalty means nothing to Riyoul, because it’s not really about you, it’s about him. You look him in the eyes, and he sees your fear, and that’s what makes you unworthy,” Eliza explained. “He plays at being the hero because that's what he wants to be. I’m sure this all started out innocently enough. A harem full of beautiful women spread throughout Rhelea to keep an eye and an ear out for whatever interests an adventurer. Gods know he’s not the only man to try for one.”

“But as the years passed things changed, women wanted out, to move on and make a life for themselves with someone who was actually there all the time, who didn’t look at them and see first how useful they could be, or how they would reflect on his reputation.”

“Maybe when he let those first women go they betrayed him, exposed his little network of spies, or convinced others to leave. I don’t know, and I don’t particularly care, because now, now he kills us! He takes us when we’re young and stupid. He fucks us and gives us levels, then power and a purpose... I remember how you used to look at him with stars in your eyes like he was some kind of a legend, how you practically begged him to bend you over at every opportunity, and now look at you, now you’re scared. Fucking terrified every time he touches you. And that is why he will replace you. He wouldn’t even need me to cover for him this time, with all the chaos in the city. Who precisely is going to care if one old whore disappears?”

When she had finished, Melitte looked furious. The woman’s expression trembled with rage, and for a moment Eliza wondered if she had gone too far. But she hadn’t lied, or exaggerated, they both knew every word of what she had said to be true, it was just a shame that their shared truth had to be so painful. They had both given up so much of themselves for him, and yet here they were, after years of service, completely disposable.

“How exactly does it work?”

Eliza didn’t smile, instead she looked directly at Melitte, not at how her hair was styled, or her face was elegantly painted but at the steel in her blue-verging-on-purple eyes. How she wished that it could be her that killed Riyoul, but that was not a plan that had any chance of success. Pirria was right, he would see her coming from a mile away, but not Melitte. She could do it, if she didn’t balk, if Eliza could trust her.

The woman had always had an uncanny knack for self-preservation, Eliza just had to hope that Melitte really was persuaded that trying to kill Riyoul now, really was in her best self-interest. Gods, how she hated trying to judge the intentions of people with charisma scores as high as hers.

“You put this one in his food or drink,” the bard eventually said and placed the first of the two vials on the table. “And this one needs to go onto his skin for as long as possible. Say it’s bath lotion or massage oil, I don’t know, but the two doses need to be as close together as possible. Don’t worry about getting it on your hands. You won’t feel great but you’ll survive one of these without issue, if taken together though you’ll need to get yourself to Pirria as soon as possible.” Eliza continued putting the second vial next to the first.

“Pirria is helping you? Why am I not surprised,” Melitte asked, plucking the vials up from the table and turning them over in her hands. “I take it there’s a reason you’re not handing me a normal poison?”

“It’s been tried before. Long story short, it doesn’t work. Riyoul can smell it or something similar.”

“Huh,” the entertainer’s eyes widened in muted surprise at that. “I never really thought that any of us had the balls to try and kill him.”

“We won't be the first, but we will be the last,” Eliza said resolutely.

“That isn’t half as comforting as you might think it is. So seeing as how I’m going to be the one risking my neck, why don’t you pour yourself a drink and tell me precisely how these work.”

***

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By the time Eliza left the Moonlit Rose the sun was low in the sky, and she was beyond exhausted. The bard had been scurrying about Rhelea only sustained by her ever-present terror at the prospect of her failure. Now that all the pieces were arranged and set in motion she felt herself begin to crash. She had either just killed Riyoul, or herself along with the handful of women who were helping her. She didn’t know if assassin masters got System notifications for the people they arranged to be killed, but she realised that there was a pretty good chance she was about to find out.

It was late, but she didn’t want to go home, not now, or ever really. The four cramped walls contained far too many bad memories that she wanted to put past her.

Eliza wanted to sing.

She didn’t know if the impulse was truly hers or if it belonged to her class, but considering the day she had just had, the allure of losing herself to a song was too much to resist. The bard pulled her coat tighter about herself and started walking towards the one stage she knew would definitely have her.

The taverns by the Row weren't her usual clientele. While she was known for her bawdy songs she always sang them with her clothes on, which meant she had to travel a good distance before she found her way to The Cup. She greeted Liara who was on shift by the door, and the scarred bouncer waved her through with a concerned smile.

The heads of dead monsters looked down on the bard from their mountings along the walls as she made her way through the crowded tavern. The winter was working itself up to be a hard one, even without their Lord’s aggression, and many people had turned towards the solace of a warm drink to help get them through the bitter season. She pulsed her stamina through her skills, and every head in the room turned to face her. The crowd of tradesmen and adventurers parted almost reverently as she leaned into her class, giving it the freedom that it so desperately wanted.

She climbed the stage without fanfare and skipped her typical greeting. She was well known in The Cup, and every eye was already on her—even Phioplies from behind the bar—so she didn’t see the point in politely gathering their attention. The room was silent, and only the howling winds that rattled the shutters could be heard over her racing heart. Her class delighted under the weight of all that expectation, how every eyeball tracked the curvature of her lips and the movement of her hands. She bent low and produced her violin from its battered case before she stood back up and set it snugly against her cheek.

Her horsehair bow kissed the catgut strings of her chosen instrument, and sound exploded outwards to fill the room. The words tumbled out of her as she sang a new variation of The Mad Lord’s Grief, except before where she used aliases, this time she found herself singing Lord Traylans name. She described the set of his face, when he had looked at her with his cold, furious eyes and told her of his apathy towards the lives of Rhelea’s common folk. She sang how it was his soldiers who mowed down the citizens of her city for protesting what they all knew to be unjust. How the steel ranks that he had invited to hunt a dragon instead tore through adventurers local to Rhelea to weed out the Dragonrider who had risen in their defence.

As the music played she felt more honest and pure than she had in years. She pushed on her skills and layered her feelings into every note and syllable. Her bow danced along the strings of her violin, her voice flowed through the melody as she put everything she had into performing the piece that she had floundered through for weeks now.

When she was finished, she was breathless and the crowd was silent. Her fears came to a head as her audience held back their applause. Finally one man cheered, and soon after that another followed, until, to many shouts of encore, Eliza found herself singing her song for a second time. Then a third, and then a fourth as her skill-enhanced voice spread out from the old pub's shuttered windows and halfway down the street. Her customary good manners were completely forgotten as she lost herself in the music and polluted the shared airspace of the city with her song.

And then things turned.

Embarrassing as it was, Eliza did not hear them coming. Her attention was focused solely on working her growing crowd who tentatively repeated the words of her song, some of them getting muddled but by and large the majority followed along. The door to the tavern opened abruptly, and in marched a squad of soldiers, the Traylan pearl wrapped in thorns prominent on each of their polished breastplates.

The jovial mood inside The Cup stilled, and Phioplies quickly emerged from behind the thick wooden bar. Without fear the waitress hurried to greet the group of armed men, the unclassed woman doing what so many decidedly could not, as with a smile on her face she did her job.

“Gentlemen, what can I do for you?” Phioplies asked, the waitress doing her best to placate the guardsmen.

“Is this your establishment?” inquired a soldier still tagged as a cobbler.

“No sir, I just work here. Can I help you?”

“The girl. She needs to come with us,” the same soldier said, pointing up at Eliza on the small stage.

“I’m sorry?” Eliza replied, her voice carrying effortlessly across the room over the quiet noise of the subdued crowd. The bard had reflexively used her skills to project the conversation to all within the bar.

“You are under arrest for inciting rebellion,” the guardsman announced loudly. Eliza’s ears took a moment to register just what had been said. The novelty of being arrested by a soldier tagged with a cobbler class was undermined by the seriousness of the crime. You could lose fingers for theft, and inciting rebellion carried a considerably greater punishment. Could she have just escaped one death sentence only to earn herself another so quickly?

“I’m what?” she said, not understanding how the soldier could have misunderstood the nuanced warning behind her song.

“Listen, how about we all settle down. I’ll pour your men some drinks, and we can all discuss this like people,” Phioplies suggested, resting a small hand on the soldier's armoured shoulder.

The man slapped the proffered limb away without a thought, and ordinarily that would be all, but Phioplies was unclassed in a city where only children were so frail. Her stat’s were 0’s across the board, and while the cobbler’s primary class wasn’t a warrior one, he still had more than enough strength to grievously injure the slight woman. A bone in her arm cracked audibly—at least to Eliza’s ears—and Phioplies spun around overbalanced. Her head tipped backwards as she fell and hit the edge of the bar’s wooden countertop with a wet thud.

Silence.

Everyone, the cobbler included, stared at the unmoving body of Phioplies for a long time while a pool of red slowly spread out across the wooden floorboards. The guardsman’s mouth moved apologetically but without sound, the shock of what he had just done was written all over his broad face for anyone to see.

But no one was looking at him.

“Phiopliess dead!”, “The guard killed Phioplies!”, “Phioplies is dead and Eliza’s next!”, “Get the guard before they kill us!”

A chorus of voices reacted all at once, and Eliza realised that she was standing at the pivotal moment. Rhelea was a tinderbox, it had been for some time, and if she did nothing the crowd would swiftly turn into a mob. She could stop it, if she wanted to, she had been trying to do just that for so long, but now that it came down to it did she really want to? Did she really want to use her skills to protect Phioplies’s killers? Killers who no doubt would still be looking to arrest her?

It was an accident, some part of her knew that, just as she knew that rioting would be a mistake. It would prompt the violent bloodbath that Rhelea very well might not make its way out of, but she had seen those recently made homeless by Lord Traylan’s construction projects. The displaced and the dispossessed who had been forced out onto the snowy streets at the beginning of winter when everyone knew that no help was coming. How many people would freeze to death over winter? How many already had?

Her eyes couldn’t move from her friend's unmoving body.

Their Lord was grieving, the loss of his son had turned him against his people. The man saw enemies and co-conspirators where there were none, but had he ever been a good ruler? The various towns and villages that surrounded Rhelea had always suffered greatly from monster attacks, not because the beasts were too powerful, but because their Lord had been negligent in defending them. The Traylan obsession with reclaiming Rhelea had always demanded too much coin and attention, and now that he was finally successful, he had swiftly moved onto the next obsession; avenging his son at the expense of the thousands who lived under his rule.

Eliza could calm the crowd, with her skills it wouldn’t even be hard, but she realised that she didn’t want to. She opened her mouth and sang.

Someone threw a punch, a soldier drew a sword, blood was spilled, and within the hour Rhelea burned.

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