Gord was gratified that he had come with a fat purse, for the pickings were far from ample in Stoink. Everyone was busy trying to steal from his neighbor, and of course those neighbors with anything worth taking were exceptionally vigilant with respect to guarding valuables.
Jan, Crowbait, and Kalonas took their splits and drifted off to revel in whatever sinks of debauchery they favored. Gord found an inn, The Three Gables, on the west end of town, and there he settled down to reconnoiter. For the first week or so he would occasionally encounter one or another of the three bandits, but evidently they ran out of funds and went elsewhere to seek more, for Gord never ran into them again. He certainly didn’t miss their company, for the nine wards of Stoink provided sufficient entertainment. After a few weeks, however, exploration and discovery began to weary him.
If the town was an odd mixture of buildings, its polyglot population was even stranger. From the throngs of freebooters, bargemen, and riffraff of Ratswharf, where cargo stolen from who knew where arrived daily, to Holdroon’s rowdy encampment of brigand gangs and mercenary companies, there were all races of men, near-men, and humanoids.
Stoink offered something to suit the taste, base or not, of resident and visitor alike. The shops carried goods from every part of the Flanaess, from distant parts of the Great Kingdom, the Baklunish states of Tusmit and Ekbir…. Every place seemed to produce some item that the robber bands eventually brought here. Interspersed with these shops, the vice dens, taverns, slave pens, and unidentified establishments were the stores where normal artisans, craftsmen, and tradesfolk made and sold their wares. The apparently large number of legitimate businesses surprised Gord at first, but then he realized it was logical that such a population needed the goods and services of any normal community as well as those endeavors directly related to banditry.
Ratswharf boasted a rope-walk, tanneries, and a brisk trade in small spars and timber. In Stoink proper, the tanned leather of aurochs, horses, and more exotic creatures was worked into leather goods of all sorts, especially armor and shields of exceptional quality. Gord learned that large shipments of such were sent to outfit soldiers and adventurers of the lands around the Nyr Dyv, and beyond. The origin of the armor was not advertised, naturally.
After traffic in stolen goods, the next mainstay of the economy was slave trading. That major industry brought buyers from many distant places and was the main revenue source for the town itself. Holdroon was a thriving village dominated by taverns, brothels, gambling parlors, and similar places aimed at separating arriving bandits and free-lancers from their coinage. Amid this squalor, though, were also weapon forges, horse traders, and all manner of provisioners and suppliers.
The town gates were open from dawn to dusk, but as the sun’s last rays tinged the sky with rosy hues, all large bodies of foreigners were herded outside Stoink, so there was much nighttime revelry in the two adjoining villages. Gord had sampled the offerings of these villages frequently since arriving in this bandit land. Ratswharf and Holdroon had little more than low dives, however, and Gord found he greatly preferred the entertainments of Serpent Lane and Suggil Way to anything outside the walls.
Leisure activities of this sort tended to be expensive, so after a few weeks Gord became more alert for money-making opportunities. Unlike spending opportunities, chances for gain were more scarce around here than honest men and virgins. Certainly, his skills enabled him to pick up a few coppers here, a silver noble or so there, but nothing significant. Before much more time passed, Gord found himself down to the last few drabs of his share of bandit loot and facing the prospect of dipping into his own hoard of electrum, gold, and platinum. He decided it was time to break out of his traditional mold and do something productive.
Locating the headquarters of the local Thieves’ Guild was simple-it bore a large and colorful sign! The rather splendid place was on Safe Avenue, in the Norward between the Slave Market and Stonegate, the eastern entryway that also divided Stoink’s Claybrick Ward from the administrative Greatward complex.
Safe Street was a thoroughfare linking the fortress area of the lords of the city with the bustling slave bazaar to the north. (Gord enjoyed the street names for the routes leading to the market place-Safe, Joy, Shackle… cute folk, these Stoinkers.) This seemed both a logical and cautious place for headquarters to be, near the most prosperous quarter with its back to the great blocks of the wall, and having a direct route to the government offices to the south. So thinking, Gord turned the corner of Crook Street (another enjoyable name) and crossed the pike-straight Safe Street. In a short time he was within the confines of the thieves’ home base.
“Here to recover stolen property?” a dun-clad fellow asked mildly from a trestle table that served as a desk, separating the building’s vestibule from access to the interior.
Gord surveyed him briefly, shaking his head.
The thief-guard looked surprised, for Gord appeared to be a well-to-do artisan or merchant, perhaps-one who should be uncomfortable in surroundings such as these. “Then are you here to hire services?”
Gord shook his head again and studied the interior of the place, moving so as to be able to peer into the corridor behind the speaker.
“Okay, buddy, quit gawking and tell me what the hell you do want…. Are you lost? Stupid? Or a sightseer?” At this last question, the guard got out of his chair, strode around the desk, and none too gently took Gord by the arm to usher him out.
“I’m here to join the guild,” Gord said blandly.
The thief paused in his effort to hustle the strangely hard-to-move fellow outside and laughed. “Who put you up to this, anyway?” he said, his tone growing less jocular. “It is a piss-poor joke-and you’re lucky I’m taking it easy with you!” As this last was said, the guard found that Gord had somehow turned and was moving behind him and back into the room again. Now the thief was getting peevish.
“No joke, friend,” Gord told the slowly reddening fellow as he sprang lightly atop the desk and then into the guard’s chair. “I am an accomplished master, and I am here to inscribe my name on your register.”
This was too much for the man, and he reached for his dagger. But his hand grasped nothing, and he stared down in amazement at the empty scabbard. When he glared up toward the interloper, he found Gord cleaning his nails with the weapon. Worse yet, a small pile of his belongings were on the table in front of this bold fellow!
“That’s it, asshole!” he said, leaping for Gord.
The thief landed with a crash where Gord had been sitting a moment before, then slumped to the floor. As pounding footsteps approached from within the building, the poor rogue managed to regain his feet and look around in a daze.
“I’m here,” Gord said nearly in his ear from a crosslegged seat atop the trestle table. “And I still wish to register.”
“Dammit, Stoat! What are you doin’ out here?” The speaker was a man of powerful build and no-nonsense expression. He stood in the hall behind the desk, glaring alternately at the guard and at Gord with one bright gray eye-and a black leather patch covering the other socket. The man had an authoritative air that Gord immediately perceived-even more impressive, in his own way, than Gord remembered Arentol to be. Was he a high-ranking thief? The master of this Guild? Or something else altogether?…
Gord smiled at the man who was surveying him and nodded a greeting, not committing himself with words until he saw what would happen next.
“Listen, Gellor,” the fellow now identified as Stoat whined, “I dint do nothing but try to keep this shit out of here, but he got rough. Look out for him-he’s fast!” he warned.