The Company: Hostile Takeover

[Bloodrose]

Teric moved through the crowd like a ghost, passing within inches of richly dressed men and women without drawing their attention. On occasion he would get to close and someone or another, and they would glance in his direction, but each individual seemed to pass him over with their eyes in a bored manner and go back to looking at something else. Even a master Akashiman ninja, trained in the arts of stealth and silence would have had trouble mimicking the ease with which Teric simply strode through the crowd without drawing attention to himself...

The door to the kitchen opened slowly as the veteran backed through, a wide silver tray resting easily in his hands. The empty platter was covered in the crumbs and residue of eaten appetizers, and Teric even had to brush some of the crumbs off the front of his shirt before they stained the snazzy white server's uniform he was wearing...

"The crowd loves those little shrimp wrap things." Teric informed the hassled looking chef sweating and hustling behind the kitchen’s island counter. "Not so much those crackers with the vegetables on top."

"BRYANT!" The chef bellowed at the top of his lungs. He was a tall, barrel-chested man, and his roar was such that is drowned out all other noise in a kitchen hectic with line cooks, platers, dishwashers, and other waiters like Teric. "SHRIMP DE JONGHE ON THE DOUBLE!"

That command set off a flurry of activity. Bryant, a poor waif of a man sweating heavily at the brow, rushed to scoop up Teric's tray and carry it off towards the end of the line cooks. At the same time another load of shrimp went into one end of the line and another load of the finished product came out the end. It was an efficient machine, designed purposefully to keep the guests of at the Triumvirate’s dinner party snacking and happy...

Another tray of appetizers in hand, Teric exited back into the crowded dining and living areas of the Elmwood Manor. It was the perfect place for the Triumvirate, the three egotistical masterminds behind Radasanth's Red Flag Syndicate, to host a party for their friends. The crowd Teric weaved through was a veritable who's who of criminal underbosses, Syndicate lieutenants, and corrupt Radasanthian political figures, and it was unlikely such a crowd would want to draw any attention. Thus, the manor, just far enough from Radasanth to make for an easy trip and still far enough away to evade the watchful eyes of the city's authorities, was the perfect location.

A lot of powerful people here. Teric thought to himself dryly as he paused to allow the guests to pick appetizers off the tray. Over in the corner a crowd of men and women were ooing and awing as a relatively non-descript man in his twenties showed off a "magic trick" in which he appeared to light a cigarette with his thumb. A lot of powerful people, and a lot of money to be made...

[Rayse Valentino]

"Are you watching closely?" inquired the young man, holding a lighter his left hand. He lit the lighter, showing everyone how normal it was, and with a flick of the wrist the flame was on his right index finger. With another flick, it moved to his thumb. With one last flick, it disappeared. The trick was met with light applause.

The man was none other than Rayse Valentino, rising star of the Radasanthian scene. The news of his work spread, and his potential was noticed. Curiously, it was the potential of Rayse Valentino and not the organization he represented: The Company. In this world, a syndicate was only as good as its leader, and that was precisely why Rayse was here today.

"You there, would you like a smoke?" he asked one of the onlookers.

He nervously replied, "Me? I, I..."

"Now now, don't be shy. It's on me."

Rayse stuck it in his mouth and started walking away, leaving the man bewildered.

"Oh right, you probably want it lit as well, don't you?" Rayse said, turning around.

"Mmmf!! Mmmf!! (No!)" the man tried to reply with the cigarette in his mouth.

Curling his middle finger back and placing his thumb on top of it, palm up, Rayse flicked a spark squarely on the cigarette, lighting it flawlessly. This trick was also met with light applause. Rayse bowed, and a tall man pulled him away from his audience.

The man spoke, his voice deep and powerful but also jovial, "Mr. Valentino! Quite the crowd-pleaser, aren't you? Maybe you should run for office!"

"Politicians are only crowd-pleasers while they're running."

"Quite true. Come! I would like you to meet some of my colleagues."

Rayse accepted this gesture, but deep inside he was agonizing over it. This place wasn't him. Somehow, he had become the star of The Company over Teric. In fact, nobody noticed the peculiar old man delivering shrimps on a platter. Nonetheless, someone had to play this role. It was necessary for what was to come next.

While he walked into what appeared to be an office, he mulled over his past accomplishments. What brought him up to this point. The underground scene was consolidating after the incident with Step, and Rayse's representation of The Company during the conflict with the group Imperial was crucial. The Company's mercenaries were thereafter assumed competent, and worthy of hiring over the shifty character in some pub. When Rayse was invited to the party, he assumed there was a catch. In the underground, a rising star wasn't something to be respected; it was something that had to prove itself to the older, more established members. Rayse knew immediately that he was not yet at that point, and this was Red Flag's fatal mistake.

He was greeted by a man behind a desk and two men seated in chairs in front. They appeared to be discussing something before he came in.

"Come, sit down!" said the man that brought him here, pointing toward an empty chair.

Rayse replied, "I prefer to stand, thanks."

It wasn't the first time he was offered a seat by someone he hated. He wanted to make sure he was above these people, that they were not worthy of his time. He pulled out a cigarette and lit it, taking a drag and looking over the four men. They were all old, a couple fat, three balding, and all wearing aged suits of varying color. Rayse really couldn't tell them apart aside from these differences. His toughness wasn't an act, but his interest in this little meeting was. That's why he tolerated shaking each of their hands, but he didn't smile.

The one behind the desk began, "Mr. Valentino, we are men who keep up with the changing times. When we see potential, we seize it."

[The Prophet]

Arkham had witnessed events that would have broken an average man’s spirit. He had communed with intangible creatures from beyond the boundaries of what is known as ‘reality’. He possessed knowledge that, if made public, would change the very face of the world.

And now, he was serving overpriced liquor to thieves and murderers.

“A double martini on the rocks. Extra olives, extra dirty.”

“Coming right up,” Arkham responded, fumbling around for a bottle of gin and hurriedly pouring the contents into a mixing glass. Careful not to soil his alabaster uniform, he added a splash of olive brine and dry vermouth to the mixture, causing the gin to cloud up significantly.

“Double martini on the rocks,” he repeated, pouring the mixture into a cocktail glass and setting it onto the L-shaped bartop. “Extra dirty, extra olives.”

“About damn time,” the man who had ordered the drink grumbled, snatching the liquor off the counter and tossing a few gold the barkeep’s way before wandering off to speak to a woman of rather foul breeding.

“Thank you, sir,” the prophet muttered, grimacing. Fortunately, he would not be stuck serving these crass imbeciles all night. A flash of light momentarily caught Arkham’s attention; Rayse was playing his part flawlessly, delighting the crowd with his fiery parlor tricks. He had not yet caught sight of Teric, the mastermind behind this infiltration, but he suspected that the grizzled mercenary was going out of his way to remain unnoticed.

“Hey, did you hear me? You fuckin’ deaf? I need some wine, here. Four glasses, two bottles o’ red. Some o’ yerr real classy stuff.”

Arkham snapped out of his half-daze and focused his attention on a nearby fellow with one of the grandest moustaches the amateur barkeep had ever seen.

Give me the strength to endure this, my Gods.

After mumbling his quick prayer, the prophet motioned over a nearby waiter with a wave of his palm.

“You! Get to the wine cellar and bring up some of the Radasanth 100. You know, the good stuff. Be quick about it. Oh – and while you’re at it, fetch a few more bottles of Jacque. These guys are lovin’ the whiskey.”

Consider this thread revived.

[Bloodrose]

"Hold it right there!" The gruff voice at Teric's back didn't cause the veteran mercenary to flinch visibly, but the warrior's muscles did tense apprehensively. Have I been found out? Do they know who I am? Shit! These were the thoughts firing in Teric's mind as he turned slowly to confront the voice, carefully swinging the silver tray around in front of him. "I'm not going to let you get away this time." The voice added menacingly...

"Ah! Finally!" The voice ended up belonging to a broad, bearded man peering out from behind some decidedly thick glasses. The big man's hands reached for Teric, but instead of taking a hold of the mercenary to drag him before the Red Flag's Triumvirate, they scooped up several of the shrimp appetizers littering the mercenary's tray. "Every time I try to get my hands of some of these, you stupid waiters disappear into the crowd." The man, no longer a threat, added blithely.

Crisis averted, Teric continued to wind his way through the crowd. By now, having attracted all the attention he needed with his fire tricks, Rayse had been whisked into the office at the far end of the room - away from the party. It was in that office, with the bloated figure heads of the Red Flag Syndicate, that Rayse was about to get acquainted with the real reason why they were here; The Red Flag made a lot of money smuggling arms from Alerar, and The Company wanted in on the game.

Teric eyed the goateed bartender coldly as he set his tray down on the bar and went through the practiced motions of tidying up his tray. Arkham, the man called himself - the Mad Prophet. He was one of the more promising additions to the project venture Teric and his nephew had established, as was evident by the pale man's presence on this particular mission. He was an odd one, to be sure, always rambling on about his Gods and secret truths. Teric didn't mind the strangeness so much (you see a lot of everything when you've played the game as long as Teric) as he cared for Arkham's special talents. Talents like the Cloak of the Cosmos as Arkham called it - the one interesting illusion had convinced Teric to bring the shadowy madman along.

"Rayse won't wait long to make his move." Teric said softly, just loud enough to Arkham to hear. The mercenary didn't look up from his tray, feigning complete ignorance of who Arkham was and why he was here. "It's time you slipped in there to back him up - assuming he needs the help."

The tiny bits of over thought food rearranged on his tray, Teric hefted the silver platter back into one hand and moved back into the crowd - weaving slowly but decidedly towards the closed door on the far end of the room and the powerful figures discussing business on the other side.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"And you, Mr. Valentino, seem to be a man of great potential."

All three members of the Triumvirate donned forced smiles, pretending for the sake of their guest that it was somehow pleasant to discuss matters of business with outsiders. It most definitely was not, and the truth of the matter was that all three men were sweating profusely in their overpriced suits. Those fake, nervous smiles could have cracked walnuts - assuming you could pry open their teeth long enough to put anything in their jaws.

The three leaders of the Red Flag were nervous for the precise reasons that other crime lords were not; they were at the top. In a tightly structured organization, everyone knows their place. The boss sits at the top of the pyramid and the chain of command grows and expands out beneath him. In that sort of system, the key players at the top of the heap feel protected. If anyone stepped too far out of line, the whole system could come crumbling down - just as an actual pyramid of people would if someone on the bottom moved to try and climb up. That kind of organization, the Red Flag was not...

They had survived for years as a shadowy, loosely organized conglomeration of smugglers, fences, and muscle. Everybody operated their own small slice of the organization, almost completely independent of the other cells. "The Right hand doesn't know what the Left is doing" was a motto for the Syndicate's success: entire individual operations could go down or get busted, but their loss wouldn't bring the whole system crumbling down like it might in a pyramid.

It was a fairly ingenious way to do things, but it made the guys at the top more vulnerable. If ever one cell were to become more powerful than it should, the whole balance of power could shift to that cell, rendering the supposed leaders of the day obsolete. The network would follow the strongest node, regardless of whether or not that node belonged to the Triumvirate.

That was why the three men were nervous. Introducing new people into the system was like introducing a new wild into a game of cards - the whole dynamic changed, and there were always unforeseen risks.

"You come to us very highly regarded." One of the three men broke the silence at last. He was a portly, balding man with an ugly chin. He held an unlit cigar in one hand as if it were a symbol of status and class, despite the fact that he was obviously not a smoker. His teeth were too white, his skin to soft looking.

"Yes, very." Said another, the second of the two sitting in front of the desk while their colleague sat behind it. They were speaking, filling the silent void of their collective awkwardness, but they weren't saying anything. Their words were vague, and pointless to the discussion.

"I believe Mr. Valentino would like to get down to business." Surprisingly it was the man who had shown Rayse in, not even of the Triumvirate, who spoke. Normally the task would have been left up to Rayse to bring things down to brass tacks, but his escort seemed to save him the trouble.

"Yes, of course." The head of the Triumvirate, the man behind the desk said plainly. "Allow me not to waste your time young man. We want to offer you a job. One of our handlers who oversees the delivery of certain items from Alerar has gotten himself in a bit of a pinch. It was his job to meet the... well, smugglers, at the designated meeting point and pick up our goods. From there he would deliver the goods to our storehouses. A pretty simple matter really."

"So... you want me to find your handler for you?" Rayse took another drag on his cigarette.

"No, Mr. Valentino. We want you to take his place."

[Rayse Valentino]

Things had taken a turn for the interesting. Rayse was expecting something like this, but they had underestimated what he was capable of. He was born to lead the world, but at his current level of reputation, very few saw that. He didn't enjoy being in the company of those who didn't have the vision to see that. They were stuck in the past. Rayse lived in the future.

Regardless, as he didn't have enough information yet, he said, "Go on."

"Well," The head continued, putting his hand on his chin as if he was trying to think up the right words to say. "You're probably somewhat aware of how we operate. It's a loose kind of framework, and we haven't had any problems until now."

"Oh?"

"We lost contact with one of our handlers several days ago. The shipment hasn't arrived yet, but we still haven't found him. While finding him is still important, we can't break the system. The wheels of our business must keep turning. I'm sure someone like you would understand that, Mr. Valentino."

Rayse kept silent. He didn't like being appointed to some errand boy position, but he knew the best way to preserve his outward expression was to stay quiet. If he talked, he didn't think he would be able to hide his rage.

The head decided to be blunt, "Are you willing to take on this responsibility?"

Rayse smiled, putting his cigarette out in the nearby ashtray, "You know I don't disappoint."

This was a rehearsed line, but it still came out somewhat forced.

"Excellent! Then, my right hand shall explain everything to you."

One of the two men sitting in the seats in front of the desk piped up, "Y, yes! Right away, sir!"

He walked up to Rayse and began speaking with him. They couldn't take this anywhere else, as there was a big party going on with virtually nowhere discreet enough to discuss a secret of this magnitude.

He said, "South-eastern part of the 3rd district, usually 9:00pm on Tuesdays, passcode is 'Tulip' and you should be alone. The time and destination shall be delivered to you upon contact. If there's any problems, you come straight back to me, okay? My office is the 4th door on the ground floor of the Manilla building."

He went back to the desk and took a seat. Passcodes, huh? This place is old-fashioned alright.

"Say!" exclaimed the man who brought Rayse in. "You are good with magic tricks, no? Why don't you show us one for the occasion?"

"Sure, why not?" answered Rayse. "I'll need a few knives."

"Knives? Are you going to swallow them or something?"

"You wanted a trick, didn't you? So hand me some knives."

"Well, alright."

They handed Rayse several knives. He stuck them each between his fingers on both hands. He crossed his arms so that the knives were sticking up. They started glowing red, the tips of them with a small flame on top. The triumvirate of leaders looked very interested. Rayse knew there would be no applause for this one.

"Now then... are you watching closely?"

* * * *

Rayse closed the door behind him. Looking around the room of party goers, he spotted The Company operatives and adjusted his collar. That was his signal to them to start the real operation.