The Old Miner Takes an Apprentice

[Ithermoss]

((Closed to Thalrond and Zack Blaze.))

Money. Money kept him fed. Money made the world go 'round, he might even say. Too bad for Mouser, money was short. He sat alone, grumbling over his plight in the Silver Pub as patrons left and right dined on thick steaks, juicy sausages, and drank tall flagons of mead. This was unfiltered cask-mead too, not the market stuff. It had been aging in cellars since before the old Red Hand suffered its collapse. To this very date and time, the ale was the Silver Pub's best: no better way to make one's legs go numb. Not like Mouser had a taste of any in years. Not even the fleas in his jacket were biting today, but instead abandoning their host like mice from a sinking ship. It was becoming more and more clear to the bog-drow: he was getting old.

Worse than old, actually. Old and poor. Like he was the sucker of the week in the funny papers, but with none of the notoriety.

So he sat.

He had plopped down at his little round table and had been sitting there for hours, trading surly looks and foul-toothed grins with the patrons. But his trap was at the ready, and he was building his report as a patron. It was his typical scam: he'd bring a trained rat in, let it loose, then "catch" it in front of everyone. He'd convince the owners of the establishment to hire him for his services, so he could feed himself and his rodent friend another week or so. He'd already made his rounds through Raiaera and Alerar, visiting most every locale in every street. He got to know towns like people got to know their own homes. He could beat around most city streets with his eyes closed, because he spent most of his time begging on them. Life in the bogs was hard, sure. Life away from the bogs?

Desperate, at best.

Mouser took out a small clicker and tapped it a few times under the table, and just as he'd planned, his chunker of a rat waddled his way across the floor, and into the rod-iron trap he'd set out under an unoccupied table. The cheese, old and stale, sat in the center. The rat slumped over to the pitiful morsel as the doors to the trap clanged shut.

"Hee-hee! Got him," Mouser cackled, making quite a display of catching the little one. The music stopped. The servers and patrons stood aghast. A well-heeled damsel fainted into her lover's arms - all that jazz. The manager saw the ashy old bog-drow and motioned him to the back offices, trying to contain the scene.

"You gots here one big fat varmint. Prolly more like 'em. Ga-raun-tee it," Mauser chimed, rocking back on his heels. "Looks like an' old building, ta boot. E'er have it checked for mice?"

"But... well...," scoffed the manager, "we've never had reports of such a thing. We run a tight operation! It's always clean! We never get complaints!"

"Too right, the rats sure like it too. It just so 'appens that I makes me living catching the little buggers. The first one's for free, natch," Mouser flashed a steely grin. "Wanna take a look?" The wily old drow leaned in, and lifted the lid a little to the trap, offering a peek at 'Feller.'

"No!" the manager piped, then regained his composure with an anxious laugh. "That won't be necessary. How soon can you take care of the problem?"

"I'm assuming the fasta, the betta? And I takes it tha'chyer customers wouldn't appreciate the four-legged company none too much?"

"Correct on both accounts."

"'Gimme til Thursdy. Not before. I needs to get me equipment."

[Ithermoss]

Mouser left, chuckling to himself and leaned up against the Silver Pub’s shiny new “Closed for Renovation” sign as the owners moved a few vital furnishings out of the establishment lest they be looted. The manager had signed the contract – no entry until Thursday. That meant Mouser and Feller both had free reign of the place for five whole days. He hardly knew what to do with himself. The pantry was calling out to him, practically begging to be ransacked. It was a good day, until he turned his head and was nose-to-nose with an old acquaintance.

“Awwh-shyte.”

“Nice to see you too, skinny,” Rakh said, scowling under a cloud of rank breath. “Back to your hum-drum day-to-day, I see?”

“We awl gots bills, mate,” he shrugged, scratching a withdrawal-induced itch. “Not e’eryone can manage an honest livin’.”

“Right. Your illness. Still nursing your rapture habit. I’ll do you a favor. You and Feller both.”

“Ye got some on ya?” he brightened.

“Better. I can get you a job.”

“Awh please. Not that again. Look mate – the unna’ground life ain’t my rag.”

“You don’t have a choice. I let the owner know about your scam. He knows now. Got it? So does the rest of Corone. Looks like you don’t have any other choice.” Rakh smiled. He wasn’t the brightest, but what little he knew about people he put to great use. It always made him grin to get the proverbial leg up on someone. A few guards rounded the corner along with the pub’s owner, to Mouser’s flank.

A quick glance over his left shoulder, and Mouser realized it too. He’d been had. No way out now but to run, and the only thing he could ever run was a good con. “Awlright. Awlright, I’m at’cher mercy. I can’t do the pillory again.”

Mouser found himself in possession of an ‘amended’ contract: he’d just been sworn into the service of Rakh & Co. for one year, or risk imprisonment back at the bogs.

“Like I said. I’ll be doing you a big favor,” Rakh grinned.