Mirt's eyes widened in surprise. 'Thirty people all picked the same number?' he asked in a breathless whisper.
'All of them,' the halfling declared in a piteous whine. 'All ten thousand miserable souls picked the same bleeding number. And it was the right number. They're all expecting payment tonight.'
A silence pervaded the room as Mirt marveled at the anguished halfling before him. A lesser being might have taken the ten-thousand-gold-lion take and fled the city. Yet Havabuck was prepared to take on the obligation of paying out the ten million gold lions, not to mention the interest payments on the loan. Mirt suspected the halfling was prepared to pay any price to retain the honor of being a major crime lord of Waterdeep.
With such round figures, Mirt did not require his abacus to calculate the interest. He slid the wooden frame aside and drew up the papers.
'You have enough armed guards to cart away the principal?' Mirt asked as the halfling signed the papers. Havabuck nodded. He was nothing if not efficient. It only took four hours to clear the one hundred thousand bags of gold from Mirt's treasury, since Havabuck had not thought it necessary to count the coin in each sack. Mirt's reputation was unimpeachable
Much later that evening, as Mirt sat calculating which gems, magical artifacts, and art pieces he would be selling to partially replenish his stock of coin, a masked figure appeared before him. Mirt was not startled. The mask was one of the helms worn by the members of the council who ruled the city. The council members kept their identities secret.
'I was wondering if you would be dropping by,' Mirt said, motioning for the anonymous figure to have a seat. 'You've heard about Havabuck. What do you think? Godly influence? Did Havabuck enrage Mask, Master of All Thieves, or simply annoy Beshaba? Or perhaps this is a mad plot of Cyric, Prince of Lies.'
'Havabuck isn't the only victim,' the figure said.
Mirt's eyes widened in surprise.
'The Cassalanters have made two similar loans, one to Widow Silvermane for a similar lottery that she runs in the North Ward, the other to the Field of Triumph Race Track in Sea Ward. Over four hundred people placed bets averaging fifty gold lions on a horse named Song of the Wind before the track could post new odds. The horse ran as if Kesef the Chaos Hound was chasing him. Won three lengths ahead of the favorite. Then there's the good luck of a venture capital company called The Rock, which funded an adventuring group that took out two beholders and raided their lair. That's another million to be divided between the company's one hundred and sixty shareholders.'
'So do you have a theory?'
'Don't need a theory. There's something wrong with Tymora,' the figure said. 'Her priests are keeping it hushed up, but they've made a private off-the-record admission to Lord Piergeiron. Lord Piergeiron sent me with a question for you.'
'Yes?'
'Could we be in the same trouble as Amn?'
'Amn?' Mirt asked.
'Yes. Remember a few years back when Amn invaded Maztica and brought back all that gold? A bushel of corn cost fifty gold there after the war. You said it was because there was more money circulating through their kingdom than actual goods that the money is supposed to represent.'
Mirt nodded slowly. 'It's a theory espoused by some sages.'
'Could Waterdeep be in the same danger?' the masked figure asked.
Mirt slid a few beads across his abacus. His fingers were quick and sure. 'I don't think so,' he said finally, but his tone was not certain.
'Suppose similar things happened again tomorrow?' the masked figure asked. 'Suppose that much money came in all week?'
Mirt gave a low whistle. He slid all the beads on the abacus to one side with a violent sweep of his hand. Then,' he said, 'we'd be in a lot of trouble.'
ACT TWO SCENE 4
Joel, Jas, and Emilo stepped through Selune's gate onto a wind-blasted mountainside. The party's first priority became shelter. The wind blew stinging particles of dirt into their face and made walking difficult. They huddled on the leeward side of a large boulder and surveyed their surroundings.
The Blood Tor was no simple conical peak, but a complex series of steep boulder-strewn faces, sloping, but-tresslike ridges, and cliff-walled ravines. The adventurers couldn't even see the pinnacle from their current position because their view was blocked by steep faces above them. Downwind, the slope grew progressively steeper, until it was almost a cliff wall. Upwind, the slope was steep but manageable. If they walked into the wind, they would come to another face that rose to a ridge. The ridge climbed until it ran into another mountain face at a considerably higher altitude some distance away. There was no evidence of any caves.
Joel pulled out the finder's stone and tried imagining a cave opening in the side of the mountain. Whether the stone was reacting to his mental image or just trying to keep him from heading into danger, Joel had no way of knowing, but it issued a weak beam of light in the direction of the higher mountain face off in the distance.
'We're going to have to walk into the wind,' Joel said.
'What?' Jas shouted.
Joel repeated his words, shouting to be heard over the roar of the wind.
Jas nodded. Her wings, Joel noted, had altered once more. Now they were bat-shaped, but their color was bright scarlet with golden flecks. Ignoring the transformation, as she always did, Jas opened one of the backpacks Winnie had supplied for them and rummaged around until she found several kerchiefs made of some lightweight fabric. They wrapped the kerchiefs around their faces, shouldered their backpacks, and stepped out into the furious wind.
There was no trail that Joel could perceive, and the slope was treacherous. Rocks gave way beneath their feet and slid and rattled down the mountainside. Far, far below, the waves of a blood-red sea pounded at the mountainside and shot upward in frothy spumes. Overhead, the sky was completely overcast. Black clouds flickered with sheet lightning. It was unclear what illuminated Beshaba's realm, but it was bright enough on the mountainside for their shadows to pool at their feet. Nothing grew on the wind-blasted slope but the red and black lichen that covered the gray rocks all around. They traveled in silence, unable to make themselves heard over the wind.
Time was hard to judge, but it had to be at least an hour before they made it to a notch in the ridge. The climb had exhausted them, and the roar of the wind left them dazed. They passed through the notch. On the other side of the ridge, the slope was less steep, dropping gradually into a great sheltered bowl where a few stunted trees grew. A ledge just wide enough to serve as a trail traveled along the ridge on the sheltered side. There, out of the wind, it seemed almost quiet, and they rested and made a general inventory of the equipment Winnie had packed in the backpacks.
Jas pulled out a padded flask of water and took a few sips. As she handed the flask to Emilo, something large and dark leapt through the notch in the ridge. The creature, a great black stag with red eyes, bounded sure- footedly down the slope. Its rack might have gored an elephant with ease. The beast so startled Emilo that he dropped the water flask. The flask rolled down the hill, spilling its precious contents.
'Rotten luck,' Emilo muttered, prepared to lunge after it, but Joel held him back by grabbing the kender's vest. 'Careful,' the bard said. 'It would be worse luck if you went rolling after it and fell down a cliff.'
'Sorry,' the kender said. 'I never drop things like that.'
'The black stag is her symbol,' Joel said, purposefully avoiding using Beshaba's name. Without Selune and Finder to shield them, using the goddess's name could attract unwanted attention.
Joel lowered Emilo down the slope with a rope attached to his belt so he could fetch the flask, then hauled him back up. The flask was more than half empty, but at least they had it back. If they were desperate enough, Joel could create water to fill it. The party traveled along the ledge on the sheltered side of the ridge. As the ridge climbed higher, the adventurers grew tired quickly and were forced to rest often.
