Witch Hunt

Having had it happen to me more than once now, a large enough sample size to make a truly unbiased summation, I am now absolutely confident that I hate being kidnapped.

My hands are bound behind my back, and a rag over my head obscures my vision. I can discern the presence of light in whatever room I find myself in, and make out some vague spots where figures, whether object or person, occlude that light, but otherwise, there is no indication of where I am. This could be anywhere.

Of course, my first and most obvious thought is the most frightening. Somehow, someway, we weren't careful enough, and the Syndicate have come calling to avenge the slaughtered Cozzos. If this was them, I'd think they'd have learned by now to simply kill their foes on sight, but it could be that kidnapping is their standard procedure, of which they have no ability to deviate.

The only other possibilities for who this could even be are wild straw pulls. Monster hunters or an angry mob, who discovered my deeds and wish for revenge? Others chasing after the watch? The ones who perpetuated this urge-driven plot in the first place? At least the Syndicate has the most obvious method and motive.

But then... how? I never thought I'd want to remember that night... in fact, perhaps I still don't. A lack of memory may just help me play dumb. If their evidence isn't rock-solid, it could be the thing that saves me. Of course, the largest potential for that to go awry is also the most glaring possibility for why I'm here at all...

She sold me out. Captured by her old allies and desperate to make amends, Alabastra would have no reason not to throw me in front of the train. Godsdammit, the more I think about it, the more sense it makes.

I hear walking ahead, and low muffled voices. I suppose I'll soon find out.

A sultry voice like syrup drifts toward me, announcing into the air, "You awake, honey?" I have no idea who she is, but her tone sounds theatric. She speaks out of the side of her mouth, performative, like she belongs on a stage. "Faster than I thought. Barely gave us much time at all, didn't'cha?"

"Who are you?", I ask. No point in pleading, the 'where am I's and 'why are you doing this's; the first question should answer most of my follow-ups.

"Antitia. Or Miss Robeno, if you're feelin' a might bit formal."

I stand corrected. That answers no questions at all. "I... think I meant the royal you."

"You think? Well, mayhaps you'll get your story straight on the double. Hard to deal on shaky terms..." She's closer now, several feet ahead of me. Judging by her silhouette, she's of human size and shape. "A clouded mind - and there's few minds as clouded as yours that I've met, honey."

I start to dart around. Is she reading my thoughts? Damned psychics. "Stay out of my head!" I do my utmost to wall away my secretive or embarrassing thoughts.

"Am I in your head? Mmm, mayhaps she is, and mayhaps she isn't. Could be she just happens to know what kinda fate's in store for you."

"My fate...?" That sounds like a threat. I start to struggle against the bindings, the scratchy rope worming around my wrists.

She laughs, an easy little chuckle like wind through wood chimes. "Your future, one could say. Though it's a little hard to spot, all things considered. I can only see the shape of it... which is how it always goes. But I can't read sign nor symptom. Yours is bein' shooed out the door, like a raccoon at the sight of a broom. Get a move on, future!"

...What? She's nearly as confusing as Alabastra. But, the future? Wait. "Is this about the watch?"

The sound of her hands clapping together like she's getting the dust out drifts to my side, circling around me. "Mayhaps it is. That devious little trinket and I don't play nice", she says, indignant but familiar, as if a bartender talking about a banned regular. If this is a Syndicate member- well... they're four for four on producing women who are insane, at least. But something about the way she speaks doesn't sound delirious. Even if the particulars are absurd. "It is a curious little thing, isn't it?"

"You can't have it", I seethe into the rag, hot breath bouncing back into my face.

She laughs again, in on some joke that I'm not. A feeling I am sickeningly accustomed to. "You can keep your little whatchamacallit, honey. At least... for now. We certainly won't take it from ya anyhow. Won't touch hide of your things, nor hair on your pretty little head."

Whoever this is, she is clearly enjoying this far too much. Either that itself was a lie, or all of this is just some elaborate hazing ritual. Knocking me out, keeping me prisoner, walking circles around my words, vague references to concepts unexplained to me... this all feels far, far too familiar. I hazard a guess. "Alabastra? If you're in here, this is not fucking amusing."

"Woahhh, hold your horses, honey", the mystery voice says. "Let's not jump ahead, now. That's my prerogative, not yours."

"Did she put you up to this?!"

The click-clacking of her heels sound off behind me. Then the noisy clinking of glass, like she's rifling through bottles, and the glug-glug-glug of someone pouring themselves a drink. "We don't get put up to so much as we're the putter-uppers." The pause gives me time to smell the alcohol from the other side of the room. She drinks, letting out a satisfied little, "Ah. And speakin' of... we didn't snatch ya up for nothin'. We do still want somethin', of course."

I see. Now I'm doomed and I look foolish. What else is new.

She moves again, drifting back ahead of me. Close enough that I can smell the honeysuckle scent of her perfume. Her entire form blots out the light. "But to answer your earlier question..." The bag is ripped off my head.

After a moment of adjustment, I find myself in an underground bar, cavern ceiling above us, and a stage ahead, with polished clean floors and a wet bar to the side that disappears past my view behind me. Tables are scattered between the tall intricately etched pillars, with dark metal chairs left empty.

A scant few other individuals mingle about the open space, figures of wildly diverse body sets, from rain thin to fur-covered and wider than a carriage. They're dressed in colorful suits, unlike the typical Marble City style of blacks and reds, and with accentuated and exaggerated features; ridiculously large shoulder pads, or vests overtop the suit jackets, extra ties, or slit skirts over pants. The woman before me wears a sparkling green dress with a colossal white lambskin scarf draped around her. Her bright orange hair is cut short into curls that frame her delicate features, and she carries a long cigarette holder in one hand. And her eyes glow; radiating a pure, shining white light.

And there's something stranger still about her, and the other bizarre individuals around her. They're all... flat-looking, not quite fully three-dimensional, and almost lightly translucent. As if they're not truly here.

Behind her, likewise tied up and bagged on the stage, of course... I see Alabastra, Faylie, and Tegan, still seemingly asleep and bound to each other in a three-spoke formation, nestled between band instruments. My gut turns in disgust.

Antitia says, "We're somethin' of a... family unit. Bound together to get the undoable done, and further our lot in life."

My eyes narrow. No sense in prolonging this, I suppose. "You're the Syndicate."

She laughs. "Oh, heavens no! No, honey, we ain't from around here at all... least, not 'til recent."

Not the Syndicate... then...? I focus on her again, and her compatriots. Among them I even manage to spot the... the redcap that kidnapped me, snarling at me from across the way. Redcaps are from the Faewilds...

No... No. Absolutely not. There is simply no universe.

Faylie's voice flits through my head. "I know... the faery mob!"

Mother. Of the fucking. Gods. "Oh, for FUCK'S SAKE!" I start to scream, thrashing against the pillar I'm tied to. "I've had ENOUGH! LET ME OUT!"

I could kill something. I really could. Absent my hungers, I know that is not a thought born of my vile inner compulsions, but simply the pure, unadulterated hatred that brews from the unique confluence of infuriating events unfurling before me.

What exactly did I do, to piss off the Gods as I have? Was I someone truly, extraordinarily evil in a past life? Did I breathe wrong when passing by an errant temple, take Corva's name in vain? Why am I the universe's damned chew toy?! Whatever reason, I am entirely over it.

"Oh dear, I think we might've dosed this one too hard", the woman says, looking down at me with pity. "Honey, this ain't-"

"You! Aren't even real!" I turn my screaming toward the slumbering three. "HEY! WAKE UP! You aren't fooling anybody!"

The woman, an illusion, that's all she is; conjured up by Faylie as some ridiculous trick... steps forward, glowing eyes meeting my own as she bends down. "Now don't go spoilin' my surprise, honey, that ain't very neighborly of ya."

From the stage, a disgustingly familiar voice causes my gorge to rise. "Wh-what... the fuck...", says Alabastra. I roll my eyes. She's pretending... probably put herself in that rope.

"Oh, now look whatcha done." The woman turns, heels clacking along the shining floor toward the stage. "Well, go off script and don't be surprised by the improv, I suppose..."

Bags on their own heads, the three women on the stage start to stir, testing their bindings. "Ah, damn...", the half-elf laments, head darting around aimlessly. "Front door ambush?! That's a low blow... whoever you are!"

Tegan grumbles, "We did the same thing like three times in the last year..."

"Yea... on Taxcasters and Partisans." Alabastra's bagged head turns toward the woman. "So, uh, put us wise..." She trails, almost playfully.

I shout across the way, "Oh, don't pretend you don't know what's going on!" It's obscene that she's even still letting this charade continue like this.

"Oscar?!" Her shoulders slouch. "Oh, thank fuck you're okay!" My blood boils at that. As if she cares. As if she has the right to care.

"I know you're part of this, Alabastra!"

The woman in the dress, who I'm certainly still not convinced isn't an illusion, puts a hand to her hip. "Seems this one's sore about somethin'. Dunno what ya done to cause that, but you'd best fix it quick lest we get a repeat of Zursday."

Alabastra sputters. "Y-you know about..." She shakes her head, abandoning the question and looking back toward me. "Look, Oscar, I know you're probably still angry, but I swear, we ain't got a clue who this is!"

Faylie chirps, "Wait a minute... I know who that is!"

"That... That's a coincidence!"

The redcap climbs onto the stage, a difficult-looking task considering his height, and rather strangely, as he bends down, he disappears from sight entirely. Without source, the bags are pulled off the trio of thieves' heads in a single grasping motion, and the redcap reappears. Bizarre. The three seem to be in a state of half-readiness, like they were only partially through their morning routines before they were ambushed; Tegan's in barely any of her armor and Alabastra's hair is left loose.

Faylie turns to the woman of glowing eyes and says, "Auntie Antitia!"

"Auntie?!", I say, at the same time as Alabastra and Tegan, to my chagrin.

The woman, Antitia... Robeno, if I recall her likely false name, steeples her hand over her forehead. "Yes, hello Faylie dear." She seems exasperated with the entire situation, as if she didn't ostensibly orchestrate it. "This is... not how I wanted this to go."

Faylie sucks breath between her teeth, cringing. "Ooo, mom's really not gonna like that you kidnapped me!"

Antitia groans. "Yea, well she'd like that you were runnin' around committin' crimes in my name even less. Which is why she ain't gonna find out about any of this." She snaps a finger toward the redcap. "Be a doll and get my niece untied, would ya?"

The redcap... I refuse to acknowledge him as a Faerie Mobster... moves to unleash their ropes. Once more, he vanishes, and invisibly their bindings are cut, setting them free. They grasp at their untied wrists in comfort.

Alabastra paints her face with false guilt. "Then ya heard about our... fun little prank?" She shoots the mobster finger guns. They don't work on her any more than they work on me.

"Oh, it was real fun. It's even more fun that you kicked off a damn turf war between us and this city's largest outfit! Oodles of it!" Antitia puts a hand to a stuck-wide hip.

So that's what this is... allegedly about. Assuming this isn't an elaborate setup at my expense, which I'm still more than inclined to believe, they found out about our framing job, and have sought us out for... revenge? Recompence? They don't seem particularly angry, if that's the case. More annoyed, like we accidentally broke their wagon wheel, not put them on a collision course towards incalculable violence. Moreover, how did they find out that it was us? The most likely answer remains the same as I first assumed; these three sold me out, and this is just performance, to mask their innocence, and continue stringing me along. It is admittedly elaborate, but I can't put anything past Alabastra anymore.

She holds up her hands in surrender, recognition of who exactly she's speaking to starting to dawn on her. "Right. In our defense..." Typical start. "We had no idea you were actually in MC. It is... bizarre to meet you, by the way. Alabastra." She sticks out a hand.

The fae woman grunts in annoyance. "Antitia Robeno... and I know who you are."

The half-elf crosses her arms. "Oh. Of course." She puts an index to her lips, then points to the fae, confusion and amusement mixing. "You've... heard of my work?"

Antitia doesn't answer. Some part of me takes a measure of schadenfreude at that. Doesn't feel good, does it? Instead, she walks back toward the center of the speakeasy, and points up. "You got one thing wrong, honey. We ain't in Marble City. Not quite."

I lean forward, still tied to the pillar... did they forget I was here? Regardless, the implication is frightening enough to dull that annoyance... Not in Marble City? I look around the space again. It's impossible to tell where we are, geographically, from this underground vantage. I'm hardly some walking encyclopedia geologica... or dwarf. The ceiling just looks like stone to me.

The others search the same, looking for clues in the roof. Antitia chuckles. "Your answers ain't up there. You are where ya were, but not anymore ya won't be. Because this..." She snaps her fingers. "Is the Other Side."

And the second she says it, the whole world shifts.

What had previously been an empty establishment, in the blink of an eye is full-to-brim of motion and sound. The cacophonous waves crashes into me before I have time to think. Chatter and conversation, chiming drink glasses, yelling, laughing, shuffling. And music. Lively jazz music with a quick and bouncing melody kicks into a brass chorus, with a swinging drum beat droning up and up like a chase. The music bounces off the walls of the establishment, its nucleus the stage that the three thieves stand on. All around them, the previously laid-aside instruments find homes in the hands of a skilled six-man band, blasting their fast-appeared melody right into the thieves' ears.

The three startle, believably shocked. The band look to be mostly humanoid, less exaggerated in form than the fae, yet there's something off about them. When I try to concentrate on their individual features, they seem to become less defined. In fact, I can literally see straight through them. They're faintly translucent, glowing a light teal color, their feet don't quite tough the ground, and telltale phantasmal whisps drift away from them like smoke.

The phantom band aren't the only ones to have suddenly appeared, either. The bar is now full of patrons, hung over their drinks or talking or flirting amongst themselves. The open area around Antitia is awash in a sea of revelry, churning waves of a carefree dancing crowd. The tables are packed; it's a full house. Some of the patrons are as ghostly as the jazz players, others more like the fae, some simply tangible humans or elves or dwarves, but they're all alike in their drunk and blithe smiles. None seem particularly phased by the individual still tied to a pillar in the center of the basement, but a few do start to hoot and holler up at the stage, wolf-whistling at the confused women.

Antitia herself, as well as her lackies, in sharp contrast to the spectral performers, are now more defined. That previous disconnect over their forms is gone, as they appear fully realized.

And a bizarre, omnipresent fog drifts aimlessly through the space. Gossamer clouds clinging to the air, as if in a steam room. It's difficult to ascertain through the colored lights of the basement, and the red-tint of my own glasses, but I swear it's as if the whole world took on a new coat of ocean blue.

Over the racket I can't hear whatever it is Alabastra says to Antitia as she pulls herself off the stage, a wide and delirious smile growing on the rogue's face. Faylie claps her hands together, clearly pleased, and Tegan's eyes go large as dinner plates, jaw hung open wide enough to catch flies.

Feeling ridiculous, and unsafe, staying on the floor amongst this spontaneous assembly, I stand to my feet. An awkward affair, considering I'm still affixed to the pillar, but I manage. The reality... or, unreality of the situation, as it were, has me at last conceding that this is likely not some illusion conjured by Faylie. Though that still doesn't discount their possible complicity.

A fae gentleman of unnaturally thin proportions, long and lanky limbs, and tendrils sticking from the tips of his ears stumbles past me, his gold-brown liquor sloshing out of his glass mug. He appraises me with a curious leer, the peculiarity of the sight dawning on him.

"What?", I bite. He jumps back slightly, and continues on his merrily drunken way. Gods, I can't stand when people stare. Rudeness crosses planar lines... a fascinating annoyance.

Speaking of, the thieves and Antitia continue to natter, casting the occasional glance my way. Whatever they're talking about, they've clearly decide I don't need to hear it. Hells, they're probably discussing next steps on their meticulous plan to ruin my day. They can continue on with the next agenda item already; this one has grown stale.

One of the band members, a woman in a feathered cloche, steps away from her bass, and floats just off the ground toward a rounded, wheel-spoke microphone. Her spectral hands wrap around the stand, and she bellows a low, smooth, and haunting melody. The music takes a slower, more lax turn, and the din of the bar turns less chaotic in kind.

Finally, the four finish their chat, and approach. Ahead of the pack, Antitia looks me up and down, and says, "Well, these three assure me you won't be a further issue. You're not feelin' partial to gettin' obstructive or violent, are ya?"

I can't help but sneer. "You kidnapped me, and now you're asking me not to get violent?" This whole situation is ridiculous. I was supposed to get away from this brand of insanity. "Don't you see my mind or the future or whatever it is you were alluding to?"

"I told you, the shape of it's all wrong. And even then, that ain't how that works. Ain't got a clue what you're gonna do next, honey." She takes a breezy drag from the tip of her cigarette holder. The cloud of smoke roiling from her ruby red lips suffuses with the unnatural fog. "Can't blame me for bein' careful... or did somebody else go on a rampage through the Carlivain?"

A knifepoint spike of pain jabs behind my eye. Reminders of my misgivings is the last thing I need. I nearly object that no, it in fact, was not me... but is that even true? I'm still not decided on how to feel on the savage affair, and I'm not partial to coming to that conclusion here and now. I only want the ordeal behind me. "I'm no danger to anyone. Not anymore. Just let me go."

Her mouth puckers to one side in consideration. "Well, we'll take your word for it, then. But our business ain't quite wrapped." She whistles out toward another of the suited fae, still in their spots from when the bar surged with motion. An absurdly large man with a pig's head steps behind me, releasing the binds on my arms.

The second I'm free, I consider the merits of running. The cons being that I'd likely not get far, I'd have no idea where to go or how to return home, and that I may even be swiftly dispatched. The pros being that I would not have to speak with Alabastra.

It's truly almost worth it.

But self-preservation wins out in the end. Besides, I don't actually have to speak with her to begin with, just the fae woman. All in all, her only sin against me is kidnapping. I can pretend the rogue's not even here.

"We'll talk in my office." Antitia sashays through the crowd, meeting the door the opposite side of the bar. "Too damn loud in here."