Chapter 1: Scene 5A: Old Contacts
"Fire them" Hunter said promptly. "The infernals are causing this. Nobody knows this, but it's true. So if you tell them, or that Dwarf out front does, we could lose our opportunity to fix this. It would make our work much harder."
"No, wait." He took a sip of wine, considering, idly swirling the ruby liquid round and round the glass. "Don't fire them. Keep them close. Be friendly to them. Talk to them, ask where they are staying, what they do in their free time. Not like spying, but like friendly, casual like.
In the meantime, talk up the doom and gloom, talk about closing and moving out, but even so, quietly buy up stock in struggling businesses, and then, when the moment is right we storm their castle even as you fire your guys and lead a general hue and cry blaming them for everything and we run the bastards out of town. And you've ended up doing rather profitably out of the whole thing."
"However" Hunter paused again, taking another sip, "This is a very good drop, by the way... However, this may be rather risky. It seems there was a group of us that were marked as we entered town. All of us were individuals who didn't know each other. But we were marked and waylaid and captured. They said some tosh about a prophecy and something something, which if it's true, or at least if they believe it to be true, then they may be following us and watching us. In which case it would be most dangerous for you to have infernals on hire and also be seen to be supporting and helping me. It might be better to say set up an account at the Iron Anvil to let me resupply myself at arms length. I currently have rooms at the Tempest Tavern, you can get word to me there. Or just fire them, tell them times are hard with the rats, you're thinking of closing...
"Anyway, I've heard of this prophecy, so I suppose I should tell you. But personally I think it's a load of tosh. How could a prophecy predict a bunch of random strangers as diverse as Piper here and myself? More likely they just grabbed people new to the city, people who would not be missed if they disappeared. For what reason, who knows." He glanced at Piper and back to Sheldon as a thought crossed his mind. "Maybe they were going to turn us into monstrosities akin to the giant rats."