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| Nacht D'Arque |
The hot sun was just setting on the horizon when the door to Nacht's office in Booty Bay opened, and a goblin woman sashayed into his life. Nacht had been contemplating locking up the office and calling it a day; he had been up late on a surveillance job for a Stormwind client, and while the work was not what one might call "exciting", the client was a steady employer, and that meant that Nacht could keep his roof over his head.
He doubted he was the first Troubleshooter to find himself sleeping in his office.
As usual, Nacht was wearing cuir boli armor, formed leather that had been dipped in boiling oil to harden it, making it almost as protective as metal while retaining it's lighter weight. At his waist he had a belt festooned with pouches, holding anything he might need, from healing potions to a thin rope made from spun Nerubian silk. He wore his trademark safari hat, and carried both a slender steel rapier and a dwarven-made cartridge pistol. A cigar burned in his mouth, one of the few vices in which he indulged in public.
The port of Booty Bay was run by Baron Revilgaz for the goblin Steamwheedle Cartel. Located on the southernmost tip of Stranglethorn Vale, it was a rough-and-tumble place that served as a base of operations for unscrupulous merchants and grifters, scoundrels and outlaws, and pirates and privateers. Like most goblin places, everything could be had at a price, from the heads of your enemies to the virtue of their daughters. Information brokers gathered and dispensed secrets from all over Azeroth, like corrupt, venal spiders at home in their schemes and webs of inequity.
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| Booty Bay |
"I hear you can fix all of a girl's troubles?" she purred, her smooth contralto voice soothing and charming Nacht immediately, making him unsettled, but nothing that showed in his manner as he pulled his feet of the empty crate he used as a desk and offered her the chair in front of it.
"Sometimes I can, and sometimes i can't; depends on the price tag attached," Nacht said. Standing politely as she sat down in the chair. "May I offer you some tea?" he offered.
"In this heat? No thanks, I'm not a glutton for punishment," she said, smiling. "Mr. D'Arque, I need you to help me," she began. "My brother Delph has gone missing in Undermine, and I need you to find him for me."
"I can give it a shot," Nacht said. "I charge 25 gold, Alliance standard weight, a day, plus expenses."
She shook her head. "I was told that you charge 5 gold a day, and only collect expenses that are approved in advance."
Nacht grinned at her. "Well, you didn't hear that from me, and I'm the only guy who gets to say what I charge." He leaned forward. "I tell you what; you seem like a nice enough lady, and since it's for family, I'll knock down by rate to 20 gold, plus reasonable expenses."
"Who gets to define what's 'reasonable'?" she replied, and again Nacht was exposed to her charming smile. "How about 15 gold, and I'll prepay 15 gold for incidental expenses in advance?"
"I can do 15 gold, but will need a five-day retainer, with a refund if it doesn't take me five days. And if you prepay 50 gold for expenses, I'll include travel expenses."
"If you don't start your clock ticking until you report to me at the Incontinental Hotel, where I'll be staying while you find Delph, we have a deal." She offered her hand to shake in acceptance. "who knows? Do a good enough job, and maybe we can enjoy a special 'tip' together when the job is done."
Deal concluded, Nacht collected the retainer and expense deposits, and shut down the office; he wasn't about to leave anything valuable on the premises, because this was Booty Bay; he coulld lock his office but return only to find that someone had stolen the lock.
He shrugged the heavy canvas bag to his shoulders, and went in search of his favorite mage, a goblin who went by the name Pixiesticks. He could usually find her in the usual place; she had a workshop near the waterline for when she was not out... doing whatever it was she did when not in her workshop. Fortunately for Nacht, she was often there, working on some gadget or another. He wished he had more excuses for visiting her; he'd been attracted to her slender but strong form, her startling blue hair, and what he imagined were gorgeous eyes underneath her omnipresent goggles. Nacht and Pixie went. as the humans said "way back" and he knew her before she stole her first micro-adjuster tool, before she earned a scholarship to Dalaran for her training as a mage. She made him feel clumsy, stupid, and uninteresting, by contrast. All Nacht had was a certain low cunning and a skill with violence - no wonder she never looked at him as anything other than a thug.
When he came to the door, he barely had time to knock before a speaker cracked and sparked (literally) back to life. “Who is it?… Oh, it’s you. Come in!” The metal blast door unlocked with a thousands of little pins and swung open with a hefty thud, beckoning him into the small lab.
"Clearly she's happy to see me again" groused Nacht sarcastically. He wasted no time in going in, giving her no chance to change her mind.
“Course I’m happy, ya one of da few people I know who I can reliably count on to have a good reason to waste my time.” His footsteps on the metal floor obscuring the mechanical feet sound, was what could only be described as a tin can with a spy glass for an eye, and a four little feet as a method of traversing the ceiling above him. The little scuttlebutt robot speaker continued. “Besides, you ask for interesting favors.”
"Hey, I pay top price for your services!" Nacht objected, his pride stung. "And this is simple, I just need a portal to Stormwind, so I can take a portal to Dornagal, so I can take the teleport pad down to Undermine so I can beat my client there. Nothing interesting about any of that, I just need to beat her so I can start the billing clock."
"Ugh! You and every other gob this side of the Maelstrom." The robot shuffled down the wall onto the floor when they reached a door. When it opened, there was a very bored looking goblin on the other side. "You're just lucky I chose here for my Lab-In-The-Box lot... the lease was cheaper here than in Gadgetzan..."
Pixisticks was something of a pariah among their kind, but there was no denying she was a goblin; the yellow-green skin and an hourglass figure more due to the hardships of a malnourished childhood down in Undermine rather than any alluring reason. Vivid, natural blue hair is pulled back into a low ponytail, with long bangs softly brushing her face, accentuating a short button nose, small ears, and stubby chin. Her deep purple eyes, made that way by her practicing of the arcane, framed by a band of freckles, only confirmed the existence of a brilliant mind skilled in both potent magic and intricate engineering. A techno-mage of high caliber. This day she seemed to have ditched the froofy and overly elaborate attire of a mage, instead going with a more practical pairing of heavy leather pants and a bomber jacket. The fur collar looked singed in some places- likely due to one or two incidents with a soldering iron.
"Why would anyone want to go back there? The money can't be that good." She made space for him to squeeze past her and enter the workshop proper.
"I'm being paid is why. The Client...," Pxie could hear the capitalization, "...wants me to find her brother, whose gone missing, and while I would allow someone to pay me to never go into that shithole and deal with it's shitizens, I don't see anyone with coin on that barrelhead. Gotta pay for my stogies somehow, am I right?"
Pixi only gave him a deadpan stare and a pop of her pink flavored Blast-stastic Everlasting Bubble Gum ™️ for his explanation. "Mhm. Suuuuure Nacht." She waved him over to a side room, which compared to the rest of the building built to proper goblin-code, looked polished. Clean. The runic circle chalked out made for an easy anchor for the spell work, and off loaded the work required to pull on the ley-lines for power. Offering a hand out, she continued, "Tell ya what, this time I'll waive the usual fee, but you owe me dinner. So scout out somewhere nice while your knee-deep in the shit, 'kay?"
Nacht forgot to look jaded and cynical for a second. "Dinner with you? I mean dinner with me? I mean dinner with you and me? Deal." Nacht had a place already in mind, the fanciest place in Undermine that hadn't already blackballed him. Assuming it was still in business, anyways; goblins may not care overmuch about things which didn't involve profit, but they did appreciate and support fine dining when they could afford it.
Another pop of the bubble gum as Pixi twirled her bangs out of her face. "Good luck," she said, and channeled the spell to rip open interdimensional space for a portal to Stormwind.
(WIP)
Before Nacht does, he contacts Sniper for backup in Undermine; with the current turmoil, its a dangerous place.
Nacht meets Devlyn and she explains that Delph went one the run because of a loan shark named Shando; all she knows is that Shando's minions are everywhere, trying to find her brother. Delph lived at Hovel Flats, in an apartment.
Nacht goes to the apartment, picks the lock and trap, and searches the place, finding a love letter from a woman named Mitzi, a lounge singer that the Diamond Lounge. Before he can search further, he is intrrupted by Gond, Virg, and SharkBite. They bring him to the Fat Guy, Shando Widegutt. Shando proposes that they combine their efforts, and that Nacht turn over Delph for a finders fee. Nacht says "I'll think about it" with no intention of doing it; once bought, he stays bought.
Nacht goes to the Diamond Lounge, and finds Mitzi. Delph is stashed in her room at <someplace>. Nacht and Mitzi are on there way to see him when Sharkbite, Gond, and Virg try and take Mitzi and cut Nacht out of any finders fee. While Sharkbite holds Mitzi, Gond and Virg attack Nacht. <Insert combat choreography>. Gond and Virg go down, and Sharkbite threatens his hostage, intimidating the whining SharkBite into letting her go unharmed.
Nacht meets with Delph. Delph is an accountant and has ledger pages as proof that Shando has been skimming payments and blaming the marks, then killing them as a "lesson". Those pages will get Shando in trouble with Gallywix, who has very little patience with those who fail to give him his cut of the profits. Nacht says that he'll let Delph's sister know he's OK. "What sister?"
Devlyn gets a note from Nacht specifying that he has made arrangements for her to meet with her brother, but when she shows up to meet Delph, dressed like an assassin, she finds Nacht instead. He explains that Delph won't be coming, but that Nacht has the ledger pages. Nacht asks her who she works for, Gallywix or Shando. She shrugs "Depends on who pays the most for those pages. Speaking of which, I'll take them now."
"You expect me to hand them over?"
"No, Mr. D'Arque. I expect you to die."
Her head blows up from a high-powered rifle round. Nacht had Sniper watching them through a scope, with instructions to kill whoever drew a weapon. High-explosive ammunition was expensive, but Nacht had guaranteed to cover Sniper's expenses. Nacht muses that the Fat Guy's finders fee should cover his costs, and maybe have enough for dinner with Pixi.
Notes
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The Goldfang Company is a wide ranging group of goblins and other neutral races operating out of the Eastern Kingdoms. Split off from the Steamwheedle Cartel to seek its own fortune but keeping ties to its allies across the sea, the Goldfangs offers a wide range of services and opportunities for its employees and its customers-be it trade in luxury goods, assassination of high priority targets, security details across the world, and many many more. For its employees and contractors, it provides a stable and high adventurous job, homes for its workers, good food, and dental!
Nacht travels to Undermine
Shando employs three minions:
* Sharkbite
* Gond
* Virg
Ganip
Ganap
Ghola
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