Evil Masterminding for Idiots!

“Well, it alliterates, but it’s still dumb.”

“Ivory Tower? The place is white.”

“But it’s got no towers.”

“Big-Damn-House-in-a-Swamp?”

“I think we rejected that already...”

The Masterminds were putting their heads together, trying to come up with names. Ker insisted that appropriately ominous names were absolutely necessary, both for their base of operations and for their consortium in general. They were seated in one of the mansion’s gracefully decayed parlors, with a pile of sandwiches and a pot of dwarven jambalaya.

The problems had started immediately. Ker was quite fond of long, polysyllabic names. Javin couldn’t pronounce them. Jessenia refused to go with anything that had “Brotherhood” or “Fraternity” in the title. Then there was the added problem...

“Let’s put the house name aside for the moment and go back to an overall name,” Jess voted, rubbing her eyes.

Javin dropped his head back onto the sofa. “Like that’ll be easier,” he groaned.

Each Mastermind wanted the group name to reflect his or her specialty. Jess lobbied heavily for words like “mystic.” Javin wanted something fierce-sounding, and Ker kept coming up with names that sounded like Thieves’ Guild rejects. Trying to incorporate all three elements resulted in cumbersome monikers such as “Mystic Crushing Black Blades” – which, perhaps sadly, was the leading contender at the moment.

“Come on.” Jess reached for paper, pen and ink. “The Order of...?”

“Order? Hm,” Ker nodded thoughtfully. “Like... a military order?”

“Or a magical one,” Jess replied. “I’d prefer Mystic Order, but we’ve seen where that goes.”

“Maybe we can do mystic,” Javin said generously. “The Mystic Order of Crushing Snakemen!”

“Um,” Ker hesitated. “Javin... none of us are snakemen.”

“But the Doom Legion’ll have some,” the big fighter protested. “See, so... well... um... I guess not.”

Ker tossed out, “The Order of Dark Doom?” but Jessenia wrinkled her nose. “The more I hear it now, I’m thinking of food. You know, ‘an order of dark doom with a pickle and beer’?”

“Beer,” Javin mumbled and pushed off of the sofa. “Get me one, too,” Ker called after him. Jess sighed and rubbed her eyes again. The two were staring forlornly at pages and pages of terrible, cliché-ridden names when Captain Kali strode into the room, the high heels of her black leather boots clicking smartly. “General, I... oh, pardon me, Master, Mistress. I had been told General Javin was in the parlor.”

“He’ll be back in a moment, Captain,” Jess replied. Now with the dwarves on board as the Doom Legion, the old classmates had decided that a more formal mode of address would be appropriate during business hours. “Please, have a seat. Or a sandwich.”

“Thank you.” Kali took the proffered seat. One of the half-filled pages caught her eye. She raised an eyebrow, discreetly asking permission to inquire.

“Names. For the group,” Ker explained, glad to have a reason to talk with Kali. “It’s good for morale to know who you’re working for.”

“Oh,” she said, nodding. “Something like, ‘Evil for Hire,’ you mean?”

“Something like that, yes,” Ker smiled. “Except that we’re not for hire.”

Jess was staring at the ceiling, lips silently repeating ‘Evil for Hire.’ “But we could be,” she said aloud. “Hire out to merchant guilds, temples, magical academies, petty lords... there’s plenty of people out there who are scheming little bastards, but don’t have the resources or the guts to follow up on it.”

“But Jess!” Ker was shocked. “That’s not the plan at all!”

“It could be part of the plan,” she insisted. “How were you thinking of insinuating yourself into all of those groups that you want to puppeteer, anyway?”

“Um...”

“Exactly! This would be a great way to get involved in a variety of organizations with the opportunity to plant our own agents there for future manipulations!”

“But...”

“It’s a good name.”

There was a silence as Jess’s eyes met Ker’s. “A bit modern, a bit slangy,” he said slowly.

“For a new, modern era of evil,” she replied. Kali’s eyes traveled between them like a spectator at a dwarf-tossing.

“And the house could be...”

“Headquarters. Plain and simple. A business has to have a headquarters.”

They were both smiling and nodding when Javin returned with the beer. “We gotta put a bar closer to here,” he grumped. “That kitchen is too far... what’er you two smilin’ at? Hey, Kali! Er, Captain!”

“Javin, what do you think about ‘Evil for Hire’ as a name?” Jess asked breathlessly. One down, one to go...

His brow furrowed. “It’s... okay, I guess, but... not really mean. I wouldn’t be scared of somebody called Evil for Hire.”

“Your captain thought it up,” Jess pushed. Ker nodded. “We’re really impressed. Just like that,” he snapped his fingers, “she had it.”

“Really!” Javin beamed. “My captain? And both of you like it? That’s great! It’s okay by me, then. After all,” he puffed his chest up, “I wanna have my people have some, you know, ownership in this enterprise.”

“It’s settled, then!” Jess crowed. There was a general cheer, some clinking of beer glasses, and sighs of relief before they gathered up the reject names and left. Jess returned to her laboratory, where she had a few dozen snakes awaiting her attention; Kali was already briefing Javin on some problem with the Doom Legion.

Ker was whistling his way back to his rooms, brain already buzzing with ways to market Evil for Hire. Then, suddenly, he stopped in the middle of the red carpeted hallway.

"Ownership in this enterprise"? Could Javin even spell those words?