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Better the Devil You Know	By : Meowshi Category: +A through F > Dungeons & Dragons Views: 1523 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Dungeons and Dragons, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story. This story contains original characters, but many names of places, spells, monsters, etc are from D&D.

Chapter List
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Chapter 2: Slumming It in a Swillhouse

Even at this late hour, the city was bustling with people getting up to all sorts of sordid business. Lilouette didn’t get many stares or questions as she made her way through the crowd, she looked like any other starving guttersnipe. As a matter of fact, she noticed with some satisfaction that people actually seemed to be trying to avoid her, likely out of fear that she was a little pickpocket. Making sure that her rapier and pouch of coins were neatly concealed in her willowy rags, she tugged her moth-eaten hood down over her face and maneuvered her way through the throng of revelers and prostitutes.
She found her destination in a quieter, though no less destitute, part of the city. The nondescript tavern didn’t seem to have a printed name, just a bottle of ale painted (poorly) on the door. She confidently strode into the tavern with purpose in her step, hoping to avoid any questions about her age. She deflated slightly at seeing that the building seemed to be largely empty; just a few sad drunks stared wordlessly into their tankards. If anyone was surprised by a little girl walking into the drinking establishment, no one said anything. A burly man was cleaning mugs behind the bar counter and a sleazy-looking half-elf was belting out some bawdy song on his lute, but Lilouette didn’t come here for the drinks or music. She was seeking a bloodier thrill.
She scanned the room and her gaze landed on a hobgoblin wearing a sour expression on its ugly face. The brute was standing off in the shadows of the barroom, physically barring entrance to a heavy door in the back, and snarling quite menacingly at the wall in front of him. She looked him over, noticing his ruddy-skin and thick patches of fur that had been ripped out where he had been hideously wounded and scarred. He didn’t seem to have a weapon on him, but the gnarled, knotted muscles lining his long gangly arms looked capable of twisting Lilouette's head clean off her body. She brushed that thought out of her mind and advanced over to him like she owned the place.
“Tha sweetcakes and ribbons are back tha way you came, li’l dolly,” he said with a wheezing laugh as she approached. She planted her feet and glared at him for several awkward seconds before he finally relented to her piercing, pearlescent gaze. “Ye know tha passwoid?”
Naturally, she did not.
Thinking on her feet, Lilouette reached into her rags and tossed several silver coins from her pouch at him, each one engraved with one of the Duc’s ugly sons on them. The coins were a pittance to her, but the hobgoblin's bloodshot eyes widened as he counted out the coins. “Tha’s the roight passwoid, luvvie,” he grumbled satisfactorily and pushed her through the door.
She spun around to tell him off for laying one of his grubby hands on her, but he had already shut the door behind him and presumably gone back to drooling at the wall dumbly. She stared at the door angrily for several seconds, before huffing indignantly and making her way down the hallway.
Lilouette found herself walking down a dank, foul-smelling tunnel that led into the vast, dimly lit basement of the tavern. Raucous laughter and cheers suddenly erupted around her as she entered the subterranean room, suggesting that the dead atmosphere upstairs was likely an intentional feint to throw off suspicion for what the tavern’s actual business was. The young girl’s eyes were drawn to the center of the room where a large circular fighting pit had been dug into the floor. A crowd of boisterous spectators had been cordoned off from the pit by flimsy ropes and were currently placing bets on a fight between an enormous lizardman with glistening blue scales and a fat man with a bulbous, mustachioed face and a high ponytail resting on top of his bald head.
The “fight”, if you could really call it that, didn’t last very long. In less than a minute the lizardman had disarmed its opponent and flung him dominantly onto the sand-covered pit floor. The crowd roared and clapped as money exchanged hands and drinks were raised in celebration, sending a pulse of communal excitement down the girl's spine. After the fight was called, the lizardman clamped its jaws around one of the bald man’s meaty hands and bit it clean off, spraying blood and bone into the air as the poor man screamed.
The next fight was a bit more eventful, as two drunks were pulled from the crowd and then proceeded to pummel each other with bare fists. The alcohol they had consumed seemed to dull their ability to feel pain and so it took several minutes for one of them to finally keel over in a bloody, broken heap. The winner of this fight, red-faced and apparently now missing several teeth, pulled out a nasty-looking knife and cut a nipple off of his defeated opponent, waving it around like a trophy before tossing it into the bloodthirsty crowd.
Lilouette’s freckled face blanched slightly at seeing all of this gruesome violence. It seemed like the fighters were expected to physically humiliate their opponent before a fight was considered finished. The atmosphere in the room was contagious, and she was soon leaping and cheering alongside everyone else as the fights progressed. Several men approached her with offerings of drink, but she waved them away dismissively. She wasn’t naive; she knew exactly why a lout with his blood up from watching pit-fights might offer intoxicants to a minor and she didn’t plan on having her virtue stolen by some fat drunk in the basement of some decrepit swillhouse.
“Gruumshra!! Grummshra!! Grummshra!! Grummshra!!”
The crowd began excitedly chanting as a woman walked onto the pit floor. She was massive, even taller and broader in shoulder than the lizardman had been. Although she was clearly human, the tribal fetishes matted into her knotted red hair and the grim-looking scarification patterns running down her meaty arms suggested that she had been raised by orcs. Lilouette's hungry eyes wandered over the barbarian's body, which was only partially covered by a dirty loincloth and a thin chain shirt. The woman’s physique was, to be blunt, a work of art; all glistening muscle and power. The woman's squared-jawed face could not be described as pretty, but the young tiefling still felt her mouth grow wet with anticipation as she locked eyes with the barbarian, feeling a rush of something new wash over her. The savage-looking woman rested a massive greataxe on her shoulder, and didn't even seem to strain under the weight. “That thing’s nearly the size of me!” the child squeaked excitedly.
“Who fight?!!” the lady roared, silencing the chants with the ferocity of her voice. Lilouette looked around at the crowd of humans and demihumans shuffling on their feet; no one seemed particularly eager to step into the pit with the massive woman. Was this her opportunity to prove herself?
“I am next!” the tiny tiefling chirped, grimacing slightly at the high tone of voice she let out. She had been trying to sound intimidating, but she instead sounded like a pouty little girl as she ducked beneath the ropes leading into the pit. The crowd chortled as she announced herself as the new combatant, assuming that it was a joke of some kind.
The barbarian towered over Lilouette and regarded her as one might an annoying gnat that was circling their sweetcake.
“Children? Now you send to fight? Me?? HAR HAR HAR!” the massive woman laughed, although it honestly sounded more like barking. The barbarian’s attempt at speaking Common was atrocious, but the dismissal and disdain in her voice required no translation. Lilouette felt her cheeks flush in embarrassment at the words, but that was soon replaced by indignation.
No one dares talk down to me like that!
She brandished her rapier with a flourish and shouted as fiercely as she could manage, “I’ll cut that foul tongue out of your ugly face!”
This only elicited more laughter from the crowd, although some were sober enough to appreciate how expensive her weapon looked and the impressive speed at which she drew it out.
“Big talk. Little girl,” the barbarian yawned performatively, showing a mouth full of crooked teeth. “Fine. You want me to break you so bad? No cry when I do.”
A dwarf in the crowd with beer streaming down his hideous beard, slapped his knees and shouted over the crowd, “What’s yer name, lass? We need it fer yer tombstone!”
Lilouette’s face reddened again, and it took all her willpower not to charge over ropes and spear the vile little man through the throat. Her full name was technically the Lady Comtesse Liliana Friloux Slackthirst Moreau, but her father always referred to her by the diminutive pet-name “Lilouette”, which meant his little Liliana.
As she didn’t want news of this fight to get back to him, she deduced that she would have to choose another name. A sobriquet that was worthy of her noble standing. “My name is…Pearl. The Pearl Lady.” She stuck her hands into her hips dramatically, which only caused the dwarf and the crowd to guffaw even louder. Still the name did seem somewhat appropriate, given her iridescent eyes and horns.
“Okay lady,” the woman known as Gruumshra said snidely, “I squash you now!”
The massive she-beast hefted the greataxe off her shoulder with a grunt and charged towards Lilouette.
As a young, noble-born lady, Lilouette had the privilege to enjoy an exquisite education. She was taught history, mathematics, the sciences, cosmology, diabolic law, philosophy, and even music and literature on the lighter days. She was also trained in a number of useful life skills expected of a young lady of her standing; knitting, singing, horseback riding, and the ways of courtly etiquette all being subjects that she excelled at. A few years ago, however, she asked her father if she could indulge in a new field of study; and this one had taken a while to get him to agree to. Lilouette wanted to learn the art of fencing.
Her reasons for wanting to pursue this new area of study were complicated. She reminded her father that several of her brothers were chevaliers and had earned fame and fortune on the battlefield, which sounded a lot more enticing to her than being passed off in some allegiance-securing marriage to a fat country lord. But if she were really honest with herself, she knew that the true reason for her sudden desire to train in combat was that her infernal lineage was starting to manifest as she grew older. She realized that if she didn't find a way to channel her violent tendencies in a positive way, she would be at risk of committing something terrible. Perhaps to those she cared about most. Lilouette was stubborn and persistent when she wanted something, and inevitably her father buckled under the assault of her tenacity. A few weeks later a woman named Blademistress Tescelina showed up at the gates of the Château de Moreau, introducing herself as a grandmaster bard and sword-instructor from the esteemed College of Swords.
The woman was what they called a Blade, one of those prancing sword-swallowers that you would often see performing in circuses for loose coppers. Lilouette seethed when the woman first showed up in her chambers; face painted like some sort of jester, and sporting a silly, shit-eating grin. She thought her father was mocking her somehow and had refused to attend her instructions, pouting like a spurned child. The Blademistress seemed more amused than offended and invited the little tiefling to witness a demonstration of her capabilities. Lilouette remembered how astonished she had been watching the bard disarm and maim an entire unit of house guards without getting so much as a stain on her pretty white coat.
The woman proceeded to drill basic techniques and maneuvers into Lilouette’s head, day after day, for half of year, before finally moving on to the performative, ballet-like flourishes that allowed Blades to twirl around the attacks of their opponents and cut them down with a dancer’s precision. She didn’t just teach Lilouette swordsmanship, though; she also taught Lilouette how to weave magic through word and dance in that esoteric way that only bards could. The little tiefling had never possessed the self-restraint necessary for magic lessons before, finding the practice of digging through dusty, magic tomes to be unbearably boring, but the bardic art of using her own force of personality to manipulate the fabric of reality felt like second nature to her.
There were still a few things she didn’t like about her eccentric instructor, however, like the fact that her mistress claimed that bards needed to name their weapons in order to properly amplify them with magic. It felt like a silly superstition and Lilouette dismissed the idea immediately. Her sword was a tool, nothing more. Still, she absolutely adored her training sessions with Blademistress Tescelina. It felt like the one thing in life that truly challenged her. She excelled at many areas of study, but they honestly often came easy for her. In contrast; her talent with a blade wasn't natural, it had been earned with blood, sweat, and tears. Disappointingly, the one thing she was never allowed to experience was live combat. Her doting, over-protective father forbade it, no matter how many times she pleaded with him to reconsider. And so she fell into a melancholy mood, believing she would never get a chance to see if her lessons were actually effective on the field of battle.
At least that was until she managed to overhear two scullery maids gossiping about a hidden fighting pit supposedly located in the lower city…
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Better the Devil You Know