this might go worse for Iker than he thinks
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There's really only one guy who meets the description the landlady gave, tough-guy half-orc delegate, but he's gotta check, especially since this one seems to be tied to one of the archdukes.

But it needs to be checked. And just because Quim is a guard doesn't mean he can't do subtlety.

Is that the guy there?

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The tough-guy half-orc delegate is pretty easy to find. He's currently losing most of his stipend to another delegate who is, though he denies it vehemently, almost definitely cheating at dice.

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Quim has seen a few good dice cheats in his time.

"You're not as good a liar as you think, you know," he says to the cheat as he sits down, "And he shouldn't let you count the dice yourself."

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"That's what I've been saying."

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"You say that now, sit down for a couple rounds and see how long he takes to count them himself without my help."

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"Now, I can't prove it, yet, but I've seen this scam before. Better you just give the big man back his stake you took from him, and leave before I decide to remember your face and name."

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"Yeah, face and name. Unless you're planning to have wizards protecting you forever."

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"You two gentlemen make very good points and, more importantly, there are two of you. Let's call everything on the table, his stake and mine, even for forgetting my face and name."

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"If he's okay with it, fine by me."

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"Fine by me. Get out of here."

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Gladly!

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Iker will, slowly, count out the coins on the table. "You want a cut of the bit he put down?"

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"Nah, you can keep it. I'm on the job and it's not catching crooked gamblers."

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"So you don't get the wrong impression, if the wizard didn't stop us fighting each other... would have dealt with him alone the first trick he pulled."

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"I don't doubt it." Neither that he could, or that he'd try. "You're army, right? Probably much better fighter than me. I go peering in corners as much as drawing blades. Quim Bover."

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"Iker, and ye, army. So who are you with?"

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"Archduchess Bainilus, I do guard duty usually. But she asked me to come look for you."

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Iker takes a moment to try to remember if that one was with or against archduke Xavier on the floor. He really should ask for a list of which nobles are on which side.

"What's she looking for me for?"

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"So, she does politics, right? And if you want a city not to fucking riot again, you gotta give them a reason to listen when you tell them to chill. And because she's a Caydenite softie what she does is send us out to talk to people, and if they tell us problems, we bring them back to her people and they try and solve them. And someone had a problem that was maybe with you. But because softie and idiot are not the same thing, she says, 'Quim, go hear the delegate's side' before she does anything."

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"If someone has a problem with me, he should say it to my face. I've got a job offer from an archduke too, now. But my boss and yours have better things to do with your time. So how about whoever has this problem stops being a coward, and sends someone to tell me a time and place?"

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"I think it was a problem paid in cash, not blood. There's this one landlord, said some guy with orc blood claimed to be a delegate paid half in advance and then skipped out without ever paying the other half. I don't know whether it was even you, let alone if he was full of shit, that's why I'm checking."

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"Skipped out, I can tell you now he was full of shit. You remember what they did with the sky the night of the riots, raining like someone screwed Gorzeh's wife. I show up to the room I paid for, they don't let me in. So I'm out in the street, in the rain, trying to find somewhere new. When everyone's still flinching from the riots, not opening doors to anyone. Somehow he tracks me down later, and has the nerve to ask for a half week of rent!"

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"Guy didn't say anything about kicking you out. Did he give you a reason?"

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“He had a whole spiel, but I can tell you, he did the same complaining every few days. Don’t think it’s a coincidence that he drops me the day after everyone was breaking into houses looking for anyone a shade off human. The coward.”

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"Ah, yeah, I've met some of those assholes. Hell* of a time to kick anybody out." Iker's on the level, he thinks, but the kind where he might have missed three important things and made up a story to make it make sense to him. "Just to be clear when I go back to the boss, you'd paid for half a week that Sunday?"

*Chelish means something different by this but, on reflection, still appropriate.

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“City’s full of them, I’ve found. I paid on Sunday, and if he’s doing some trick with the schedule, I don’t want to hear it.”

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