The Twelve Kings of the North

There were three things no one on Beach Street could escape: birth, death, and the Balle Gang.

Calvo, the Balle Gang's boss, loved that line, though he had no idea where he had stolen it from. In truth, several gangs were crammed into Beach Street, and the Balle Gang collected protection money from only one Casino and a few hundred yards of shops.

That day, Calvo wore a lizard-skin coat and lounged in a room carpeted with lizard-skin rugs, attended by a maid who supposedly had Lizardfolk blood.

Before long, one of his men stood outside the door and told him Randy hadn't shown up.

Calvo remembered Randy. The lad was sharp, just as Calvo had been when he was young. That was why Calvo never gave him a chance. He had a secret buried deep in his heart: he had strangled the Balle Gang's previous boss with his own hands.

"Don't Big Fless and Little Fless follow him around all day?"

His man nervously told him that both Flesses were missing too.

Calvo decided he would show them the tortures of "Calvo the Lizardfolk" when they returned. But instead of news of Randy's return, he learned that Randy and five other gang members had all died gruesome deaths outside their territory.

Calvo the Lizardfolk realized they might have brought trouble down on the Balle Gang.

And trouble soon came knocking.

"Would you rather I send an Arcane Missile through this wooden door and another few dozen yards to punch through some poor bastard, or have Andrew use Charm Spell to draw the rats out of the nearby sewers and make them tear into people in their sleep?"

Michael's words worked like a door-opening spell. The Casino's tightly shut doors suddenly swung open, and a fat man draped in