Chapter 1: The Mission
Fenrir sat in his customary place in the back corner of The Vulgar Lake, one of Unger’s less reputable taverns, cloaked in the cloud of smoke that trickled from his pipe, his deep hood pulling a shadow over his face, and the rest of his enveloping cape carefully calculated to just barely show the sword at his hip.
Fen knew that he was perpetuating false stereotypes by dressing like that, but he had long since learned that when someone walked into a bar to hire a mercenary it was helpful to match their expectations.
It worked. Fen watched as a refined middle-aged woman walked into the tavern, raising her nose at the clientele of The Vulgar Lake until she locked eyes with Fen in the corner, rushing over to sit down across from him at the corner table. Harl, the barkeeper, rushed over and placed a nice foamy pint on the table in front of her.
“Oh, no thanks.” The lady said, but Harl was already rushing off to help another batch of newcomers.
“Just keep it.” Fen said. “It makes it look like we’re just chatting.”
She nodded, and then glanced nervously around the room, making sure nobody was around to overhear whatever she was about to hire Fen to do. “You’re Fenrir, right?”
“Yep. Please, call me Fen.”
“Alright Fen.” She cleared her throat, but after eying her drink suspiciously she apparently decided it was beneath her. “I have need of your services.”
Fen simply nodded, providing her with silence until she was ready to speak.
“You undoubtedly heard of the… incident at the palace last week.” She cleared her throat again, this time actually sipping the ale in front of her. “Well, it was worse than we let the public know about. A ledger was stolen that contains several very important state secrets, and if it falls into the wrong hands it could spell disaster for Unger.”
She fell still for a long time, casually sipping her ale and trying to pretend she didn’t like it. “So, you want me to get it back.” Fen said, breaking the silence and saying what the woman was clearly too anxious to say.
“Yes.”
“I’m going to need a few more specifics about the situation. I need to know what you know about whoever stole it and where they might have gone. I’m also going to need to know the exact details of the robbery; point and method of infiltration, other things that were stolen, casualties, and whatever else you know.” Fen waited a moment. The woman leaned forward, clearly expecting what came next. Sometimes it was nice to fit the stereotypes. “I’m also going to need half the money up front. You found me here, so you undoubtedly know my fee.”
The woman eagerly reached into her pocket and slid a bag across the table. The ring of pure silver was quickly stifled under Fen’s cloak as he stashed the money. “I can get you the rest of the information by tonight.”
Fen accepting the money was enough to let her know that he had accepted her job, so she hurriedly stood and left the tavern.
As soon as the door shut behind the woman Fen got to his feet and went over to the bar. Harl finished serving a few more drinks and moved over to Fen, handing him a slip of paper. He disguised the transfer by giving Fen a nice tall mug of mead.
Fen went back to his customary spot, stealing a covert glance at the paper he had been given. On it was a perfect replication of the woman’s face, drawn as though by a professional artist, though it was actually wrought by a magical amulet that Harl had come into possession of some time back. It really came in handy for Fen’s line of work.
Fen had only worked his way through half of his mead before his pondering was interrupted by a conspicuous newcomer striding into the bar. The man was comically short with a long flowing beard which swung dramatically as he did the customary furtive glance around the tavern before his gaze fell on Fen.
The short man bustled over and sat down in the chair the woman had vacated mere minutes ago.
“Fen, you don’t know me, but my name is Regis Elred and I have need of your services.”
The familiar address and the unashamed introduction immediately put Fen on his guard, and he moved to shut down the interaction as quick as possible. “I’m afraid my services have recently been contracted, I can’t help you.”
“Yes, you can.” Regis cleared his throat. “I believe you just spoke with Miss Halla, personal assistant to the King’s Adviser. I have a vested interest in the item she must have asked you to procure.”
Fen felt his heart start hammering in his chest and he had to forcefully stifle the urge to pull a knife on the man. He hated being spied on, but he stifled his paranoid anger with silence, waiting for Regis to keep talking.
“I’m willing to meet your standard rates if you allow me to copy the ledger before you give it back to the government.” Regis said, leaning forward. His voice lowered to a conspiratorial whisper. “There are things in there that are of broad interest to the public, and they’ll never know that you were involved in leaking their secrets.”
Fen stayed silent. More questions kept popping into his mind about the task he had just agreed to, but he wasn’t willing to give anything away at this stage.
“Think about it.” Regis had to stand on his chair to slide a small card of paper across the table to Fen. “I’ve heard you are a good man, and this would be a good deed for you to take part in.”
With that Regis left. The paper held directions to an address in the city.
Fen walked over to Harl and grabbed the proffered picture of Regis and then stormed out into the city, needing to be moving to process the conundrum he had just been put in.
Notes About The Story:
In my last post I was talking about the advantages of pantsing vs. outlining, but I realized that though I understand the differences and have done it both ways I’ve never committed to either way for the duration of an entire novel. I’ve found my own way that seems to work for me, so I’ve never pushed to understand the other ways. That’s fine, and that works well for my writing, but for the sake of my teaching ability I want to write a full novel with pure pantsing and see how that method works for me. So, I’m going to post a chapter a week to my website and by that commitment force myself to truly pants through the whole project.
Plus, I also think it will be fun. I’ve picked an idea that is based on intrigue and uncovering secrets, and I think that will be well suited to discovery writing, so I’m really looking forward to this challenge.
