Chapter 35: Ch. 34 – The Slippery Warbler

“If you plan on robbing me, please give me a five minute heads up warning,” Momo said as Radu led her through a thicket of trees, “the rat in my heart scares easily.”

“Oh, I would never want to scare someone’s heart-rat,” he laughed.

“Yes, exactly,” she frowned, a branch thwacking her in the forehead as she passed. Ouch. Why did all secret passageways have to be so hidden? Momo was starting to regret not going with her ride-bird-into-city idea.

“And for the last time, I’m not going to rob you. If I wanted to, I could have just done it the moment we met.”

Momo huffed, “that’s – that’s not true. I would have flattened you.”

“Yes, of course. The same way a cloud flattens a mountain when it passes over it.”

Momo frowned. She was growing tired of this little lizard man and his funny words.

“Not to worry, we’ve arrived.”

The thick trees had finally thinned, giving way to a clearing in the woods. Momo’s eyes widened. She had been expecting a door, or a cave, or at least an entrance. What she was not expecting was a wooden bench with a raven-headed man sitting atop of it, smoking a cigarette.

“Alexi,” Radu greeted, “Momo, this is Alexi. He’s our ticket across.”

I knew the bird strategy had some merit to it, Momo grumbled internally.

The bench stood in front of a particularly fat tree. Looking up, she could see that the tree branches had been engineered to point in an unnatural way, creating a shaded enclosure around the trunk. The enclosure had glass-paned windows, was decorated with strings of candles, and looking inside, Momo could see a small bed, and a side table.

Now that was a house. Completely isolated in the woods, with a proper bed, and a nice bench for drawing. Momo held her coin purse even tighter to her chest. It was decided, she would need to be rich. Only so she could buy this nest from the resident bird.

“It’s nice to meet you, Alexi,” Momo said shyly, after a moment of mourning that she could not immediately move in, “you have a very nice treehouse.”

The raven man did not look up at them, or dignify Momo’s compliment with a response. Instead, he reached for the newspaper laying next to him. Continuing to smoke his cigarette, he paged through the Nam’Dal Infrequent Gazette.

“Did you know that mating season was pushed off a whole three months this year?” he complained, pointing to an article on the page, “the Head Birds decreed that ‘babies couldn’t survive the current political climate.’ Bunch a’ crazy nuts, those fowls are. What do baby chicks care about Nam’Dal politics?”

“That’s a real shame,” Radu said, “I know you were looking forward to it.”

“Looking forward to it?” the raven squawked, “it’s the only thing I got on my calendar.”

Were these animal-people or people-animals? Momo thought, staring at the bird intensely as he spoke. If the legs are people-legs, but the head is a bird, is it a bird with human legs or a human with a bird head?

“Maybe you could mate outside the season?” Radu suggested, as Momo squinted her eyes in continued bewilderment. She was beginning to give herself a migraine.

“Blasphemy!” Alexi said, slapping Radu’s arm with the newspaper, “what do you take me for, a common bird of the streets? I can wait my pretty little three months, and then meet with the fowls as I always do; dressed nicely in a suit, at the Nam’Dal Third Street Inn. If anything, the extra time lets me hone my dancing.”

The last line pulled Momo out of her thought tunnel. She had decided for the time being that they were animal-people, seeing as they walked and talked as humans did.

“Your dancing?” she chimed in.

“Of course. As one of the highest pedigree birds in attendance, I must make sure my shimmy is perfect. If I do so much as miss a single step, I will be the laughing squawk of the whole flock.”

“Oh, I see,” Momo nodded, stuffing down a laugh.

“Humans have no appreciation for what we go through,” he sighed, “anyways, you two are in luck. Since mating season has been postponed, I have the extra time on my hands.”

He flung his cigarette into the dirt, and then stamped it out with clawed feet. Oh no - clawed feet. Momo hadn’t factored them into her animal-human evaluation. She’d have to return to step one. She frowned.

“You are ever gracious, Alexi,” Radu said, passing the raven a few coins.

“Please,” he said, shooing the coin away, “do not bother me with tips. I do not carry coin, anyhow, I only travel with banknotes.”

“Banknotes?” Momo furrowed her eyebrows.

He gave her a pitying look, “oh, you sorry thing. Have you only ever dealt in coin? You must be terribly impoverished. Even more reason for me to perform this act of charity.”

Momo sputtered, “why does everyone always assume that—”

His wing jutted out at her, cutting her off. He spread them to their full wingspan, and clasped his hands together. He looked nearly like a heavenly angel, like the type you’d see hanging around churches. Except this one had a beak.

“Grab my arm,” Radu said, offering it to Momo. She stared at it.

“No, thank you.”

He frowned, “I am happy to leave you to get ransacked on the bridge, then.”

Momo grimaced. She’d just have to violate her own rules on personal space one last time. For the sake of the Dawn. She grabbed his arm weakly.

“Is he going to fly us there?” Momo said, legs pre-trembling at the idea.

“Fly?” Alexi guffawed, “you think I would risk these freshly manicured wings with a chore such as flight? Please do not insult me.”

Alexi closed his eyes, and began to hum. After a few seconds, blue light emanated from his fingertips. He pointed his talon-like nails at the pair of them.

“[Teleportation III].”

–

Momo did not enjoy teleportation.

She had experienced quite a few out of body experiences lately–swimming through the Nether, transforming in and out of a tree stump–but this one took the cake on her personal ranking of most terrible sensations ever.

It was as if she was stuffed into a tiny box, tied with a ribbon, and then kicked by a linebacker all the way across three interdimensional football fields. And then spit on, for good measure.

“First time teleporting, I’ll take it?”

Slowly peeling her hands from her eyes, unbearable light poured onto her pupils. Radu stood above her, offering a helping hand as Momo squatted in terror on the floor. Refusing the hand, she wobbled upwards herself.

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Using the wall to balance, she slowly adjusted to the dim torchlight. She could smell whiskey and vodka, and heard the clink of colliding ale mugs.

“Cheers to another year of stealin’ from the rich, and givin’ to the bartender!”

A short distance from Momo, a man slapped a bag of coins on the table, sliding them over to a reptilian man in black trousers. The man traded their beer-stained coins for filled mugs. Kegs full of every alcohol imaginable were assorted behind him in wooden barrels, labeled with worrying titles like ‘Fatal Fizzle’ and ‘Bird Tail Cocktail.”

“Welcome to the Slippery Warbler,” Radu grinned, doing a small curtsy, “what can I get for you?”

“Out of here, and as soon as possible,” she mumbled.

“Oh, come on,” he clapped her on the back. “The best way to drink off teleportation jitters is with a Nether Gimlet.”

Radu pointed to a poster behind the bar. It was an illustrated depiction of glass of ale filled with dark, shimmering liquid.

Loan payments got you down? Just die! *

The Nether Gimlet - Best Served Alive

* Interest payments can still be collected by Nether debt sharks

“I’m… good,” she reaffirmed, “also, isn’t it morning? Why are people already drinking?”

“That’s a fun-killer attitude,” a drunk man interjected, overhearing their conversation from a nearby table, “this is the Warbler! The juice doesn’t stop flowing ‘till the King’s men have their staves up our arses!”

“Oh,” Momo said, slinking away from his vodka-infused breath, “thank you for that information.”

“Ka problem,” he said, waving his mug at her, and then taking a hefty swig from it, “Lordas! It’s time for round four!”

The bartender sighed, filling up another keg.

“Is there a reason the bird teleported us to this… fine establishment?” Momo asked, pinching her nose. She felt like she was getting drunk just wafting in the scent of the place.

“The Warbler is the unofficial headquarters of the Con Artist’s Guild,” Radu informed her, pointing to a board on the wall. It was a Quest Board just like the one in the Dawn, but hidden in a dark, unassuming corner of the room.

Momo furrowed her eyebrows. “Why don’t you guys have a real headquarters?”

“The [Knights of the Sun],” Radu spat, “apparently, ‘crime’ is a bad word these days. First it was the necros, and now us petty criminals are getting a bad rap. Con Artists have a long-standing, appreciated place in Nam’Dal society. After all, the city’s biggest industry is weight loss pills.”

“It’s… what?”

“I’m jokin’,” he grinned, “even we don’t dabble into that level of criminal activity. The Nam’Dal guild only does the basics: investment scams, romance scams.”

“Romance scams?” she said, her eyes comically wide.

“Sure, it’s the biggest con business there is!” Radu said with a nod, “Teddy right here is the best of ‘em. I mean look at that face, what’s not to fall in love with? I really can empathize with our targets - it would only take me a few minutes before I was leaving my family’s estate to this handsome fuzzball.”

Radu shook the drunk man by the shoulders. Momo gaped. He surely had to be confused. Teddy had the face of a battle-bruised frog, with puffed out cheeks sewn together with scar tissue. His lips were inflamed, and his tongue slipped out of his mouth like a dog.

“That’s Teddy?” Momo said, face paling. “Are you sure?”

“‘Course I am. High society women just fall over themselves for a night with this charmer.”

“Heh,” Teddy grinned, and Momo stared in horror as his face twisted into a new shape entirely. His cheekbones lifted, his nose grew. He looked like a whole new man. A beautiful man.

“Polymorphism is wasted on the goody-two-shoes druids and mages,” Radu groaned, “our vaults would be brimming with coin if we only had a few more Teddys lying around.”

Momo’s head spun. Some polymorphs could beautify themselves into Alois’ Next Top Model, and Momo was stuck with being a tree stump? This had to be the cruelest fate she’d yet to be dealt.

She couldn’t even imagine how different the world would be if she could transform into a young, medieval Angelina Jolie. No longer would she be plagued by the words tiny, sleepy, confused, poor, orphan-like.

Even better, if she could transform into the world’s most mediocre looking woman. A complete nobody, totally unremarkable. Unnoticeable. Un-gossiped about. Not a single feature about her worth disturbing her nap for.

Momo sighed happily at the fantasy, and then looked at Teddy.

“How’d you learn how to do that?” She grilled him, her eyes full of jealous fury.

“Do what?” he said with a childish laugh, his face morphing back into its froggish reality.

“The thing,” she said, gesturing to his face, “that thing.”

“Oh, just a little class skill is all,” he shrugged, jutting his mug out to the bartender as he refilled it, “I’m a [Dark Cleric]. I can heal the body, but I can also make it heal in weird n’ wondrous ways. ‘Course, my actual skin takes a beating whenever I do it, but I’ve gotten used to that.”

Momo’s interest diminished.

“Want me to show you how?” he offered.

“I’m fine with my regular-looking human skin, actually,” she said, deflated.

“Your loss,” he rolled his eyes, throwing down another mug.

As he washed down a fourth serving, the bar’s doors flew off the hinges, crash-landing on either side of the entrance. Sunlight streamed in, and several knights surged into the small tavern.

“Oh, wonderful, this again,” Radu groaned.

Two heeled boots dented the feeble flooring, wood planks splintering in pain as a woman sauntered in. She entered last, and the lesser knights flanked around her. She was small, maybe even shorter than Momo’s height, and yet commanded the space with an aura of dictatorship.

Momo gaped. She didn’t know who this pocket-sized knight was, but she was immediately in awe of her. Tiny yet terrifying. This was exactly who Momo strived to be.

“Criminals, con artists and necromancers,” she said, addressing the room with a bow, “I hope you’re having a pleasant morning. We will, of course, be taking you to jail.”

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