Fable - Ask Dreadlords, Pirates, and Thieves

If not for the aether coin in his palm, Mortivore would barely have been able to parse his colleague from the rowdy rapscallions and roughnecks in the Thirsty Gull. He had seen him already in the unsightly shape of an orc pirate, and his size assisted in the matter of following him, but this watering hole was packed to the brim.

Cutthroats and thieves, all come to dull their senses. Mortivore had nothing but scorn for them. But, as it so happened, a drunk crowd would serve their purposes better than a sober one. He had even engendered this himself, previously buying a few rounds for the most thuggish company, indulging them in the notion that he was but an old, fever-minded fisherman.

Now, he could safely observe his colleague at work, with a mug of apple cider in hand. He sat on the old aft of a once stately schooner called Herald's Eye, perching him on a bit of a vantage point, as he could watch the teeming bar below.

He rubbed the aether coin with his thumb, cold, flinty eyes watching the orc work his way through the crowd. After some missions involving Kael, there had been . . . questions. Quiet reports. Faint mutters of concern. Enough so that the superiors of the Dreadlords had decided to test the mettle of this initiate. See if he could keep to discipline, in a place turbulent with chaos and temptation. And if not, well . . . that was why Mortivore was here.

A wordless bellow emerged from the mouth of a balding dwarf, black hair crawling from the back of his skull like a whip. His open mouth teemed with rotten- and golden teeth, black beard bristling with crumbs, foam and finger-bones for braids.

The roar turned into guttural words:

"I tells ya I'ma buy that whole auction, I--" he interrupted himself for a titanic belch, smacking his bared and tattooed stomach, "stick it to those republican scum, I saysh, heh - didn't know what hit 'em! JUICES!" - he shouted louder now, as others were roaring at him to shut his gab, "juices that'll SET ME BACK STRAIGHT and - and make me two-hundred years younger--"

Mortivore clenched his fist around his coin, closed his eyes and muttered a complex incantation. When he opened them, a subtle, silvery sheen had replaced his eye-colour, glowing like a bared blade reflecting in the sun. He concentrated on the dwarf. The proximity of one of his aether coins helped him quiet the mass of thoughts, honing in on him.

Words were often meaningless. Most spoke them with hardly any sense or to deliberately confuse those around them. Sometimes even to confuse themselves.

But thoughts. Thoughts revealed more.

However, reading a mind wasn't as simple as that. Mortivore had spent the better part of his life studying this craft, and even he had only grasped certain elements.

He likened the mind to a lake. Its surface could be seen easily, though it only revealed a sliver of the truth - but to plunge deeper, one would have to immerse themselves in its waters. And to hold their breath.

The surface of this dwarf's mind came in visions and murky flashes of imagery. Some people were like that - predisposed to think visually. Wordless emotions latched onto these, identifiable only through a certain empathy of the psychemancer. A fresh tankard of ale at the bar. Hope. A dwarven lass with a comely bosom and flaxen hair, smiling. Vain hope. A scroll with writing, a seal, and a place to sign. Anticipation? An elixir of a teal liquid, stoppered by a broad, flat cork. Greed.

Mortivore opened his eyes again. The image had been vague, uncertain - but close to the official description of the healing potions they sought.

He turned the side of his coin, blew on it on its face in the vague resemblance of an ear. It heated between his fingers, and his whisper carried preternaturally to Kael's ear.

"The dwarf speaks not complete babble," Mortivore said, his gaze locked on said dwarf, now in the process of mooning on the table with his breeches down. "He has seen it. Seek him out, and let his actions instruct your interrogation. I shall watch for suspicious eyes."

Mortivore had a certain reputation among the Dreadlords. Whenever he said something along these lines, many knew what he truly meant. His idea of 'interrogation' usually involved insidious torture of the kind that left no scars or bruises on the flesh. Instead, it broke spirits like snapping wood, and splintered their minds into pieces of fractured glass, leaving behind bodily husks, drained of both information and will.

Kael