“Aahh, much better.” The spiderkin woman smiles to herself as she enjoys the shadiest corner of the bar section of the hideout. The thieves always enjoy the shady corners, and the highest ranked get seniority on the best spots. She doesn’t care much about how dark the corner is, but she appreciates the feeling of seclusion even with the loud hangout all around her.
And in her opinion, there are few things better than unwinding with a nice glass of wine and her knitting after having been reading reports all day. She wishes she could pass that duty on to someone else, but a guild leader who doesn’t know what’s going on isn’t going to stay leader for long. But once the mayor is dead and she takes his place, she can leave that sort of tedium to her underlings instead.
It also helps her mood that the reports are mostly positive. She had been on the border between worried and angry when she heard one of the team leaders was fired for his poor management of the haulers, but that proved to be an interesting opportunity. Pul was Plamut’s little project, wanting the butchers as a front to launder coin. She never expected to gain a new member instead of a new front. Or rather, in addition to. It’ll just take a few years for the changeling to either fail enough to call in his family’s debt, or for him to accept the guild enough that he’d take them over himself.
It’s looking a lot like it will be the latter, and in stunning fashion as well. He’s signed his reports as Tupul, but his nickname is already starting to spread. She thought he might be finally admitting his real self when she first heard it, but everyone still thinks he’s an elf, at least the ones not in the know. Still, handling Bernuth without apparent effort is impressive, especially considering how timid he was before the hold.
She supposes delving will give some people confidence, even if it doesn’t prepare someone to actually fight a person. She detests delving herself. She’s seen far too many thieves fall because of it. Some reveal too much and get arrested, some think experience for levels and actual experience are the same thing, and get themselves killed learning the difference. Others go soft and focus on the delve. The rare few like Pul who take the power and apply it properly are not worth the losses of delving, generally.
But now she has a potential new leader, and someone who can get the Earl the information on the dungeon he insists on getting. And if the talk of his blankness isn’t exaggerated, she might have a great way to ensure the plan will work. The Earl’s mercenaries are still not here, but with her own changeling, she might be able to have him kill him instead. It’d make things a lot simpler, and if he manages to escape, he’ll have shown himself to be worth joining the inner circle.
But that’s a lot of ifs. For now, she knits and sips her wine, watching the other thieves. Her eyes flit over all of them, taking in the small details, but most of her attention that’s not on her knitting is on a single thief: Bernuth. He did not take losing to Pul well, and she smiles around her wine glass as she watches him slowly crumble. He’s hardly moved from that spot over the last several days, nursing his ego and his ale, grumbling to himself and flinching whenever someone would walk in.
Honestly, she wouldn’t have expected him to be bright enough to doubt himself. He’s always been a blunt instrument, a tool to keep the true underlings in line. He didn’t need to make any decisions, just do what he was told, slap around whoever needed to be reminded of their place, maybe go and intimidate a shopkeep or two.
But being put in his own place, now he worries it’s more precarious than he thought. Toja suppresses a giggle at the notion, not needing any special affinity to tell what he’s thinking. It’s plain enough on his face and in his posture that she could probably knit his thoughts into her current project. She wouldn’t, though. She doesn’t need something so inane on her tea cozy.
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Still, she should probably do something. He’ll either drink himself into a proper stupor and do something properly stupid, or he’ll waste away without someone telling him what to do. She motions for one of her guards and points at the dour elf, indicating she wants him to join her. The guard looks confused for only a moment before complying, her own big dumb muscle knowing he shouldn’t try to figure out how she thinks.
Bernuth almost jumps through the ceiling when the large hand lands on his shoulder, and he tries to shrink in on himself once he’s told she wants to speak with him. He might not be smart, but even he knows the Boss shouldn’t want him for anything he’ll enjoy. She’s hardly going to reward him for his failure with the hold, small as it is, but she thinks he’ll take to this new task rather well.
He nervously approaches and sits across from her, flinching as the guard sets a fresh mug of ale in front of him. Boss Toja smiles, knowing just how to get the sparse light to highlight her spiderkin mouth.
“Why so nervous, Bernuth?” she asks, voice smooth as silk.
“I-I’m sorry about getting fired, Boss!” he stammers, pale and sweaty with nerves. She waves a hand and gives a dismissive laugh.
“Oh, that’s nothing to worry about. Blank is stepping up very well.” She hides her smirk as he flinches at the name. “I hope you weren’t planning on trying to get that particular job back, Bernuth.”
“No!” he practically shouts, before his eyes widen and he speaks at a more appropriate volume. “No, of course not, Boss! I just…” he trails off, unable to put into words what he was doing.
“Good. You’ve moped enough, Bernuth. I need you to do something for me.”
“Anything, Boss!” he pleads, and she believes him. The poor fool really does think he was actually put in a position that his failure could actually hinder her plans.
“Pull yourself together,” she orders. “You’re here to break legs, not stare into your ale. Get out there and find another laborer job, and do some delving. I need you to be strong for what I have planned next. Don’t come back here until I say so, and keep an eye out for a message from me.”
He nods vigorously, clearly still ashamed at his failure, but eager to prove himself. He stands and turns to leave, before she speaks up once more.
“Finish your ale, first.” Bernuth complies, and she smiles at him as she sees him looking a lot more collected, the mug hitting the table once he’s done.
“I won’t let you down, Boss!” he declares, and she waves him off. She watches him go with a small smirk, her knitting needles clacking as she weaves a plan for the brute. As annoying as his firing was, it still gives her an opportunity, and not just with Blank. Framing the dungeon, possibly as Miller’s puppet, may be the main plan, but it’s not the only option she has.
In the end, she simply needs Rezlar dead and a patsy to take the fall so it won’t implicate her or the Earl. The dungeon is an easy one to pin the blame on, but not the only option. Any patsy will do, and Bernuth practically has the word painted across his forehead.
It’ll be simple enough to set the scene. Either he gets a poorer job, or none at all. Either way, there will be a trail of him not doing as well after getting fired from the hold. Then people will see him delving, driven to make himself stronger. They’ll probably see him using techniques that might raise eyebrows, but nothing to make them do anything.
Things that seem to clear in hindsight. It’ll be a tragic tale, one that happens often enough that people will accept it without much fuss. How many workers try to make their sudden unemployment their former boss’ problem? That he didn’t attack immediately simply means his hatred was allowed to simmer, a plan slowly forming.
She smiles and finishes her glass of wine, taking a moment to doublecheck her work with both her needles and her plan. Both are to her satisfaction. If the Earl’s plan pans out, that’s fine. There’s a few more steps to it than she would prefer, but he’s the one with the money and prestige to throw around to make it work. But if they need a backup, Bernuth will give them an easy target to pin the blame on.
It’s what he gets for failing her. If he ends up not being needed, she’ll have a stronger enforcer to use some other time. And if she does need to sacrifice him, that’s a price she is more than willing to pay.