"Perhaps she might pay handsomely for a ring, a dagger, and a bottle of the most superior brandy residing in mortal hands today. Failing that, perhaps she might pay handsomely to learn that the Red Wizard Zandria had recovered the Orb or perished in the attempt," Jack mused.
Jack bid his partners a good night and left to find a bed. He even left his fair share of the night's tab on the table and sauntered off into the cool spring evening, humming a merry air as he strolled down the streets leading toward home. Perhaps he'd purchase a small manor out in the countryside, nothing ostentatious or crass of course, a few dozen acres and servants to maintain his modest yet comfortable lifestyle.
"Women such as Illyth or Zandria might prove eager to attach themselves to a person of my status and dignity," he mused. "Why, I might-"
Someone threw a cloak over his head from behind and wrapped it tight in the blink of an eye. A flurry of punches and jabs battered Jack through the heavy coat, and he was wrestled and dragged a few steps only to fall into a muddy, foul-smelling pool of water. He flailed about, trying to defend himself, but hard-driven fists hammered into his head, shoulders, and back, knocking the wind out of him and pounding him mercilessly. Jack gibbered in panic.
"Wait! Stop-unh! Who-agh! Stop!"
"Well, well, well. If it isn't-"
"Jack Ravenwild. Where's the ruby, Ravenwild?"
"You know, dear sir, we've been quartering the city looking for you. We've discovered that the ruby stolen from House Kuldath was sold in Tantras a few days ago. Perhaps now you may be inclined to-"
"Tell us where the money is, or we'll slit your throat."
Twisting in agony, Jack managed to wriggle out of his cloak. He rolled over on the cold cobblestone and found himself staring up at Morgath and Saerk. The two thieves stood over him, short truncheons in their hands.
"Your persistence astonishes me, gentlemen," he gasped. "I thought we understood that I had nothing to do with your employer's unfortunate loss."
"You were seen taking money from a big, blonde-haired Northman-" Morgath began.
"-who was observed selling a ruby the size of a pigeon's egg to a dealer in Tantras for the sum of thirteen hundred Ravenaar crowns," finished Saerk. "The Northman fenced it for you. Now how do you think we can satisfy our employer's demands for justice and the gem's return?"
"Clearly, we cannot return the gem, so we should discuss the issue of reparations," Morgath said. "Now, let's start with what's in this satchel."
Thirteen hundred crowns? Why, Anders cheated me of almost two hundred pieces of gold! Jack thought first of all. Then the rest of the thief's statement reached him regarding the disposition of Jack's satchel. Jack shook his head, trying to clear it of intoxication and pain, and looked up. Morgath was holding the pouch in which he'd stashed the pick of his pickings from the Guilder's Vault! Slowly he levered himself up off the street and carefully brushed off his clothes.
"That," he said slowly, "has nothing whatsoever to do with you."
"Oh? If it's valuable and it is yours, then it might very well have something to do with us-"
"We'll just keep it until you produce the ruby." Saerk laughed. The thin thief was really an unpleasant fellow, gaunt and bony, and his laugh sounded like the shrill whinny of a skeletal horse. He dropped the truncheon and pulled out a wicked knife. "I think we'll keep a couple of your fingers, too, by way of thanking you for the trouble at the Tankard last week."
Jack was not about to let these two filchers walk off with his hard-won loot. He drew himself up and looked at the two men, then glowered, then scowled. "I believe," he said clearly, "that I have had all that I care to stand." He muttered a spell, the spell of seeming, and slowly began to alter his appearance. "You see, gentlemen, I am not as I appear. Until now, it has suited my purposes to disguise my true form, but you, you have given me cause to forget my restraint and resort to more direct measures." He grew taller, heavier, more gaunt. His skin darkened to an infernal coal black as his ears assumed wicked points and long, sharp tusks thrust their way out from his lower jaw.
The two thieves took a half-step back, fumbling for their weapons. "Stop that," squeaked Morgath. "You can't fool us with a simple trick like that!"
Jack grew taller still, now towering over both men. Wisps of steam escaped from his mouth when he talked, as his voice deepened into a low, menacing rumble. "I am a visitor from a far land," he continued. "I had hoped to pass peacefully among your kind, perhaps observe human customs, learn human ways, but I refuse to be assaulted with impunity, and I refuse to be hectored and badgered and threatened, and I refuse to have the two of you pawing through my personal effects. Despite my best efforts to avoid this, you have forced my hand, and so now I must rend the two of you limb from limb and feast on your steaming organs before your dying eyes!"
He finished by throwing back his head and bellowing in sheer ogrish rage, rolling his eyes and raising his huge taloned hands over his head as if to conjure down upon the two terrified thieves the very instrument of their doom with no further delay.
Morgath and Saerk stood petrified for one awful instant, gazing up like sheep standing under the butcher's knife, and then they broke and ran, abandoning the satchel and their truncheons in their haste to depart the vicinity. Jack roared after them as they fled pell-mell down the alleyway and bolted out in the street. Morgath turned left and Saerk turned right, a prudent tactic had they been in the correct position to execute the maneuver, which they weren't. As it so happened, they collided, the short one upending the taller, and the taller knocking down the shorter. Jack took two steps and roared again, at which point the two thieves yammered in terror, picked themselves up, and ran off screaming into the night.
Jack used the spell to assume the appearance of a uniformed city watchman and picked up his belongings. He could hear the screams of the two thieves, now fading into the cool distance. Sooner or later, the authorities would come running to investigate reports of a berserk ogre mage rampaging through the Anvil, and it wouldn't be wise to wait for that to happen. He changed his appearance back to normal and departed the scene, congratulating himself on his own cleverness. The night was cool and fresh, the air was sweet with rain, and even if he ached in the ribs and shoulders and arms from the drubbing the two thieves had given him, in the end he'd run them off.
He was only a block from his apartment when someone else threw a cloak over his head and pummeled him mercilessly to the cobblestones. Flailing wildly to tear the cloak from his face, Jack's arms were pinned, and then his assailant threw him face first into a hard brick wall, hammering a big fist into his kidneys two, then three times. Jack cried out and fell, only to be savagely kicked several times before he heard a voice through the red haze of pain.
"That's enough, Marcus. We're supposed to arrest him, which implies bringing him in alive."
A heavy boot kicked him once more in the stomach, doubling him up like a broken doll. Then the cloak was pulled away. A large pair of leather-booted feet stared him in the eye, and a little farther back a somewhat smaller pair of leather-booted feet of a more feminine slenderness waited their turn.