Lessons
A man sat in a dark room, the smell of the underground filled the air, damp stone and mildew. The odour was powerful enough that even breathing through your nose you could almost taste the old earthy stink.
“Wake up,” a voice called, but the man in the chair did not stir, “Wake up.” the voice tired again, the voice was not kind or gentle but it carried no anger in its command to wake. “Wake up.” the voice said a third time, more loudly and flatly, bordering on irritation, when the man still slumbered the owner of the voice, “Wake up!” the voice demanded, slapping the sleeping man with the back of his hand.
The man stirred in a panicked shock, struggling against the binding on his arms and legs, tied in a haphazard cross and loops tied with strong secure knots. The man struggled making incomprehensible muffled pleas.
“Oh good…” the voice said, “you’re awake.” stated as a matter of fact and not a statement of anger or spite. Sitting down a strange lamp on a nearby barrel that produced an extraordinary amount of light, something magical rather than mundane filled most of the room with a near sense of daylight. But the shadows it did cause were deep and dark.
“Meumpeummph” the man struggled to form syllables around the gag in his mouth.
The sound of a chair being dragged against the stone floor filled the room until it was pulled in front of the struggling man. The owner of the sinister but calm voice took a seat backwards in the chair leaning forward on the back rest, and pulled the hood of his cloak down.
The man’s eyes shot open wide in a renewed panic. Struggling and pulling against the ropes the chair groaned and creeked but didn’t budge even slightly.
“Save your energy.” he said,
“Eemmpaumph.” the struggling man said.
The man sighed and pulled the captives' gag down. “What?”
“Venturious!.” he said.
“Me.” Venturious said back mockingly, leaning forward resting his chin on the back of his hand.
“You won’t get away with this.” the bound man said.
“Anvar…I already have.” Venturious said, looking around the dank cellar. “Look around you.”
Anvar scowled, taking in the space but remained silent.
Noticing the man had gotten distracted, or was trying to plan some sort of escape Venturious flicked him in the forehead, “Pay attention.”
Anvar’s attention snapped back, though he was in no position to make demands or critical statements, at least for the moment his cheeks burned red with anger and embarrassment for being stuck a second time by this new money wanna be.
“I believe we are in need of a…let's call it a business meeting.” Venturious said.
“If that’s all you wanted then why did you tie me up?” Anvar asked, trying to tamp down the anger in his voice.
Venturious looked cold and calculated. “Talking, talking alone doesn’t send the message, or teach the lesson required for the source of my anger to be understood. We’ve ‘talked’ before, and you have made it your goal to act as though you were listening and that if you were just sneaky enough you could break my rules and come out looking and smelling clean. But I want you to understand something, I will say it very clearly, that isn’t how this works.”
Anvar sneered. “I don’t get what your problem is, profits are through the roof, we have almost tripled the markets and you are angry at me? Isn’t that what it's about? To make an omelette you have to break a few eggs. What’s the point in rules if you don’t push them to breaking?”
Venturious clenched his jaw, dumbfounded by Anvar’s stupidity. “You never cease to amaze me at how truly moronic you can be.” Venturious said standing. “Now, would you care to explain why your operation has started to involve children?” he said, showing his teeth slightly. “Because I made myself clear when I said, do not involve women or children.”
“What liar told you I was using kids?” Anvar asked.
Venturious said nothing but took a stride forward and grabbed Anvar by the hair and pulled up, twisting his wrist as he did, Anvar having nowhere to go struggled and tried to stretch his neck as far as he could. “Answer.” he said, shoving his arm back before letting go, the chair tilted to two legs before slamming back down on all four. Wiping his hand off on his cloak.
“Nobody suspects kids.” Anvar said trying to shrink away, but having nowhere to go it just made him look more pathetic. “It just seemed like a no-brainer, and if I got my third party guys to do it I’d have plausible deniability.”
Venturious made a clicking tisk sound and shook his head, “Your brother took a lot longer to crack, but that’s to be expected. He was your muscle after all. Really was a shame he tried to protect you.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Anvar asked.
“Precisely what I said, Your brother died a fool’s death in a pathetic attempt to keep harm from coming to you. But the fact of the matter is, he made it much worse.” Venturious shrugged. “But we are getting ahead of ourselves.” he said, taking a leather satchel from the floor and sitting it on his now empty chair, “Did you know, it’s almost impossible to overdose on Dreamer’s Dust?”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Anvar said.
“Patience, Weihnachten gifts are far less fun if you open them day’s before.” Venturious said, pulling out an ornate wooden box from the satchel. Flipping open the lid revealed a strange powder, it shimmered like a black opal or bismuth crystal. It was a box filled with Dreamer’s Dust, a small fortune's worth.
“What are you going to do with that?” Anvar asked in a slight panic.
“Well, it's not what I’m going to do with it. It's what you are going to do with it.” Venturious said, “You weight…” he started at the man a moment. “About 10 stone.” Venturius proceed to scoop out a large quantity of Dreamer’s Dust. “You are going to do all of it. Every last fleck. You'll experience what the people your men sold to children experienced.”
“You wouldn’t.” Anvar said nervously.
“If that helps you maintain your sanity, I suggest you hold onto the belief.” Venturious said, stepping forward with a bowl of the dust, precisely measured to the dose.
“What do you know of Dreamer’s Dust?” Venturious asked, as he prepared the next steps.
“It helps you see between The Weave.” Anvar said.
Venturious laughed, “As expected, you are only half correct. It does far more than that, at least in the quantity you’ll be taking.” he said, holding the bowl by its underside and rotating it slowly with his fingers. “At this dosage it does far far worse than pushing your sanity to its limits.” Venturious spoke the next part slowly so it could sink in. “Do you know why the dose you take is necessarily measured? Of course you don’t, Dreamer’s Dust doesn’t just let you see The Weave, you can be seen by the denisines of The Weave, in a small dose they barely notice you, you are nothing more than a speck in their eye, a floating shape at the edge of their vision, but with this…” he said showing the amount in the bowl. “They will take notice and will be quite unhappy you are invading their home.”
Anvar’s eyes grew wide with panic, “What…no they can't, they can’t see us, that isn’t possible.”
Venturious shrugged. “Guess you’ll get a chance to test that theory.” he pinched some of the dust between thumb and pointer in one hand, using the other to force Anvar’s mouth open. “Another interesting fact about The Weave and The Dreamer Dust.” he said, dropping the dust on the man’s tongue. “It’s not unlike the ocean. It reaches far and deep, with things swimming its depths not a soul has seen, obscured by the fog of understanding.” Venurious watched as Anvar’s eyes unfocused and looked distant, letting him enjoy the nice trip for now, as he mixed the rest of the dust into a liquid making it easier to force him to take.
After a short time Anvar started to move again. Coming down from the high, and remembering what Venturious had said about The Weave being a deep, dark ocean.
“How do you feel?” Venturious asked, but as Anvar went to speak. “That was rhetorical.”
Anvar looked to see that large glass flask in Venturious’ hand. “No…no…please…I’ll leave town, I’ll disappear, You’ll never hear from me again. I’ll turn myself into the church, I’ll do whatever you want just don’t make me drink that.”
“Sadly.” Venturious said. “I can’t do that, I gave you your chance already, and you spat on it.” he said swirling the flask, the shimmering liquid moved thickly in the glass vessel. And before the man could make any more protests the neck of the bottle was showed half why to being down his throat and Venturious plugged his nose so he’d be forced to swallow.
“Enjoy the trip.” Venturious said, with a wicked laugh. Anvar had already started to scream and thrash against his bindings as Venturious ascended the stairs out of the cellar. “I’ll check on you soon. Have fun.”
After two hours Venturious returned to the cellar, accompanied by a brownish skinned Orc nearly as wide as he was tall. Venturious walked over to the slumped figured in the chair and checked his pulse. “Volk, clean this rubbish up if you would.”
“Right away boss.” Volk said, cutting the man free before carrying the body over his shoulder upstairs.
“Volk, once you are finished, ready the room for another guest.I have something special planned for him.” Venturious said, passing Volk at the top of the stairs.
“You got it boss.” Volk said.