We arrived at the bar. Normally weapons had been allowed there. I had visited the bar occasionally, and this was the first time the bouncers wanted to take our weapons. Well, I was a bit hesitant, but I knew Shrew had something up her sleeve if something would go wrong. So we dropped our weapons and entered the bar.
Juggler was wrong. I didn’t know. Others did though. There was this crazy-looking orc with white hair and a really weird guitar. Then there were two trolls and a dwarf. They were a band. Making music. I had never understood the concept of music. But apparently most of the world did understand, and the best were really rich.
The orc was the leader of this music-group. His name was Ludwig Von Beholder. He said that they had a band member missing, and they needed her back as soon as possible. It was Wednesday and they had a gig on Friday.
Apparently this band was famous for not having humans there. But now they had taken a human female to be a part of their band. Her name was Linda Gordon, and her stage name was Nix. But they had kept it a secret and made her undergo some surgeries to make her look like a medusa. With snakes as hair. I didn’t understand why, but it wasn't important. They needed help and were willing to pay to get their member back.
We got Linda's address and decided to start from there. Oh, and we got all the information about Linda we needed. Apparently they didn’t believe she would have taken off on her own. She had entered a singing contest or something, and this band had heard her and thought she was very good. And they had recruited her. Well, I think there wouldn't be many possibilities for a human who looks like a freak anywhere else.
We drove to the neighborhood Linda had been staying after her surgery. It was a dead place. Nothing ever happened there. We had left Nerdy to do some internet-searching about the neighborhood. Apparently there had been some disturbances with some local gangs, but it was hard to believe when we went there. There was no one anywhere.
I spotted an old man further away from the apartment. Bobby and Shrew went to search her apartment and I decided to talk with the old man. Nerdy had found out that in that neighborhood there was three newcomers, and elf, orc and a human. Well, one went right, almost. So it was so dead here that even strangers were news.
The old man didn’t know anything but thought Linda was really strange sight. I spoke with him a while, but he was annoying and I wanted to bash his head in. I was happy my neighborhood was not this dead. Well, neither of my neighborhoods.
Bobby and Shrew didn’t come up with anything in the apartment. Bobby decided to try and talk with some dog-walker and I knocked on Linda's neighbors’ door. Shrew started from the other side.
Door was opened. I asked if he knew anything about his neighbor and he asked me to step in quickly. I stepped in and saw this was some kind of teenager. He told me that there had been some gang outside last night. They were making a lot of noise and drinking. Linda had screamed at them, trying to make them go away. Police didn’t help. Then there was something that sounded like a struggle. That was all the teenager knew. It was enough. We should find some gang, I thought. I thanked the teen from his information, told him that police was no good and that they should trust only themselves.
We got a location of a teenager-gang from Nerdy. Apparently that small gang was hanging around in some area a little further. We went there to talk with them. Maybe they knew something about last night’s disturbances, or maybe they were the reason for them.
We met some teenagers who were gathered around a moped. We went there and asked around. They told us that there was this new gang. It was more violent and they were trying to take the territories to themselves. Teenagers told us that they had told them to go away and a bit taunted them. They said that the other gang was too afraid to go further, but it was obvious that these guys just drove away very fast from any confrontation. I promised to go and kick their ass as a thank you for all the info.
We met the other gang. They were dressed quite distinctively. We demanded to have some info, and they wanted to fight. So we decided to beat the info out from them. Oh how badly things turned out for them… And for us, too, for that matter.
We went to a small alley. There was seven or eight gangers, Nerdy went to the car because he didn’t want to fight. Shrew said she didn’t fight fair, but I hoped she had understood the rules here. Apparently no killing.
One of the gangers stayed to watch for possible police. And then they started yelling at us, mocking us. I mocked them back. Bobby tried too. Shrew was silent.
After a moment Bobby decided to change the “rules” and hit the gang leader to the face. All the others were shocked. They attacked and I noticed a knife. I hit hard, and took some hits as well. Bobby had most of the gangers. Shrew tried to evade all attacks, telling she didn’t fight fair. I hope they would've believed her.
Shrew got enough. She made a fireball. Some of the gangers tried to escape. One kept attacking Shrew. I tried to subdue the leader and went on the ground, wrestling with him. Bobby seemed to do fine with his opponents.
Shrew decided to make another fireball. Now she didn’t even try to avoid hitting us. She got her spirit to help. Fiery aura, the bird, the spirit. And the fireball exploded right in her feet, and all of us were consumed. I managed to avoid most of the flames but got burned. So did Bobby. Shrew got some burns as well. Almost all of the gangers were dead. I decided to kick Shrews ass later for that and Bobby grabbed one surviving ganger who was trying to crawl away.
The ganger told us that they had kidnapped Linda and sold her to the Death Zone. She had seemed freaky enough. That was all we needed to know and I slit his throat. Then we went to the car and I called Death-Zone-Jinx. He agreed to a meeting right away, and away we went.
Jinx told us that it was some stupid person in a summer job who had bought the medusa. They had realized she was just a freaky human. They had sold her forward to some mob-person who had a brothel with freaks. So she had been sold to a brothel to be a prostitute. I disciplined Jinx about having a non-magical person doing purchases. He offered me a job as an assistant. It sounded interesting, but I turned it down for now. Maybe later. Jinx was also happy to have sold Linda, because he didn’t want to be mixed in some kidnapping of a person with real SIN.
I called Juggler and asked him to organize a meeting with the mob-person or someone in charge of the freak-brothel. He promised to do just that. We had actually thought about breaking into the brothel, but it seemed easier and quicker to buy Linda.
Nerdy and Shrew met with the mob-people. They had a long dinner with them and agreed to a sum of money, a place to make the transfer and all the other small details.
We waited in one corner of a street for the mob-people. They drove by on a van. When the van got to us, the side door was opened. Two people pushed a woman out from the van. She had a bag over her head and her hands were tied. We caught her and took the bag from her head.
Shrew spoke to her calmly and got her to understand she was safe, and we would take her back to the band. She seemed a bit shocked, scared and puzzled. She still believed us and got in our car with us. I talked to her about screaming at some idiots at night. She told us she had wanted to sleep, and the gang was making it next to impossible, so she had tried to make them quiet by going out and yelling at them. I told her that in her case it would be best to call the police, put on earplugs and wish they would be silent. Or get a bodyguard or a big gun.
We arrived at the bar the band was staying in. We took Linda in. The band seemed very happy about the results. Ludwig gave us VIP-tickets to his oncoming show. Also some fan-set including posters and video and things. I thought it would be wise to stay in touch. Even though they looked weird and played music, they seemed to be famous and rich. Staying in touch with Ludwig could prove to be very beneficial.
I gave my share of the tickets to Juggler. He kept one set for him and was happy to have paid for the mob-meeting and information and Linda. Apparently he is a big fan. He also sold my tickets forward and I got some money from them. Others sold their tickets somewhere else.
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