Alex gave the door three knocks, pausing between the second and the third.
"Password?" echoed a grainy voice from the speaker inside the wall.
"The deadly trade," the mercenary responded, tapping her foot impatiently against the floor.
The door slid open, and Alex walked into Skulltrader.
Her eyes quickly scanned the room for her fixer. He sat at the bar, talking over the phone. She approached him.
"Talk to you later, 'Lesh. Something came up." Nick shut his flip phone.
"Alex," he acknowledged.
"Nick," Alex swiftly grabbed her phone—a knock-off Amber Seven—and showed him the picture she had taken of the caravan. "These look like spell comps to ya?"
Nick frowned, sighed wearily and muttered a swear.
"Yeah. Didn't think so," she responded, adding:
"You know I don't take that kinda job! What the fuck happened!?"
"Sit," Nick said, gesturing to the empty stool at his side.
Alex complied, waving to the bartender as she sat.
"My fault. I got sloppy, didn't vet the job right," he stated, the regret in his voice doing little to appease the mercenary.
"No shit," Alex scoffed.
The bartender, a man in a waistcoat, with pointed ears and white hair—characteristics of snow elves—approached her, saying:
"Ms. Strider. Your usual?"
"Yeah," the mercenary responded. "Thanks, Dex."
Dexter nodded and began sorting through the items beneath the bar.
"So, the Ashway is killin' dark'uns again..." Nick took a deep breath. "Old habits die hard."
"Ain't just the Ashway," Alex commented. "Vezenians are at it, too. One of their squires was there. We didn't get along too well."
"The Empire? Fuck..." The fixer sounded genuinely disappointed in himself. "Look, a fixer gets paid to make sure a job is up to the merc and client's standards. I didn't do that, so I shouldn't get paid." Nick took out a bag of coins from his pocket. "Here. Take my cut."
Alex didn't like that response. Not one bit.
"Ain't about the money, 's about the civs ya made me kill! Fuck, you got any idea what that'll do to my rep!? I ain't some glyphed-up 'zerker, killin' fo' fun, I'm a professional, with standards. If I start getting' more jobs like this, I either turn 'em down and then people start to think I'm weak, or I take 'em and end up becomin' a fuckin' psycho! Like the Jackals! Like Vilfrut! Like the people who-!"
Alex stopped herself before she could complete that sentence. They sat in silence for several seconds.
"I'm sorry, Alex. Truly," Nick said.
"'Sorry' won't fix this. Nothin' will," Alex responded.
They returned to silence, until the bartender returned with Alex's "usual": three throwing knives, an autoinjector filled with neurostabilizers, and a small, marble-like sphere, with a glyph carved on it.
"Thanks, Dex," Alex said, stowing every item in its respective pocket.
"Anytime," he responded, leaving to tend to other mercenaries that had just arrived.
Nick eyed the mercenary with suspicion, and questioned:
"What's all this for?"
Alex smirked.
"See, that squire I mentioned? She didn't sign up to kill civs, neither. Empire told her the same lie Ashway told me. Well, she didn't like being used as a tool fo' genocide. Decided she needed a lil' angel-a'-vengeance."
Nick scowled disapprovingly.
"Alex, did you take a job from a Vezenian agent? Without going through Skulltrader first?"
Alex's smirk turned into a grin.
"Sure did. Matter a' fact, headin' there right now," she said, getting up.
Nick sighed, and otherwise did not respond. As she left, she overheard her fixer ask the bartender for another round, adding:
"Kid's gonna get herself killed someday..."
Two neighborhoods to the east of the Skulltrader regional headquarters, Beatrice Woodhearth stood on the sidewalk of a bustling street. A few cars ran by, though most of the road was occupied by pedestrians. She approached a circular, wooden door, branded with the formula "C2H6O." A hanging sign beside it read "Nowak's Ethanol Brewery."
She opened the door, causing a bell to ring. The interior of the shop contained several large metal tanks, complex systems of pipes and pumps, all alongside limewash walls with wooden beams and a curved ceiling. A few small stone constructs, like little walking statues, walked around the shop, carrying barrels and bottles of chemicals.
A small man, around shoulder-height when compared to the squire, walked towards her. He had brown, lightly curled hair and large, rounded ears. When Beatrice first met him, she was surprised. From what she'd heard, halflings were half the size of elves. She quickly learned that those tales were greatly exaggerated, as were those regarding the heights of the dwarves and faeries.
"Welcome, my frie-" The halfling recognized the squire, and his friendly expression quickly turned somber.
"Oh. It is you," he said. "I am sorry, but you must go upstairs."
"Of course," Beatrice responded. "Thank you for your assistance, Mr. Nowak."
The squire hastily walked past the golems and climbed the ladder that led to the brewery's attic. If she were seen there, the safety of the mission and of Nowak—the civilian whose business was billeted—could be compromised.
Beatrice didn't like the practice of billeting, yet it was unequivocally effective. The choice of an ethanol brewery was useful, too; gangs tightly controlled the flow of fuel around the city, and as such, breweries were rarely the victims of crime.
The attic was tightly packed with crates upon crates of brewing supplies. Only a small clearing of open space remained, which contained Beatrice's radio, her duffel, and her sleeping bag. She was supposed to meet the mercenary in two hours. Accounting for travel time and for arriving thirty minutes earlier, she had about half an hour to spend. She turned on the radio.
"-Neuwirth with your evening news, and today there's something special: Last night, a dark-elf immigrant caravan was found, everyone in it dead, and here's the interesting part: There's reports that a Vezenian knight was involved! That's right, my friends: The Empire allegedly sent an agent into the heart of our city. If this is true, it's not just another killing by the folks in the north—it's a power play! Tensions rise every day, and it's only a matter of time until-"
She turned off the radio. Now was not the time to think about that.
She opened her bag and restocked her supplies. Needles, a fireball and a break-action, single-shot pistol. Gunpowder, she recalled, contained all the ingredients for a heat spell. All it took was one wave of mana from an enemy, and her gun would explode in her hand. That was why revolving pistols never took off, and why she didn't like gunfights. Still, a gun could be a useful tool.
Beatrice approached the singular source of light in the room, a small, round window, and sat with her back towards it, holding her book. She read, hoping to indulge in a world better than this one, one where stories could have happy endings. Her eyes skipped from word to word, but that is all they were—words on a page. Her mind quickly wandered to thoughts of home. Her father... If the mercenary was correct, if her homeland truly was corrupt to its very core, then what of her father? He held the prestigious title of Count of Vasviera. Was he complicit in acts like what had happened? Or was he simply a tool, puppeteered by forces beyond his control? A killer or a pawn...Beatrice didn't like either option. She shut the book.
She didn't want to stay here any longer. She stood, and from her bag, took the gaiter she had bought the day before putting it around her neck. She then grabbed the last thing she needed: her metro pass. She briefly stared into it. She despised metros. The cramped conditions, the heat, the noise… She'd gone through much worse in training, but would never understand how someone willingly used one. She then sighed, recognizing she had no other way of getting to her destination, and then left the brewery.