When Hirrus re-emerged into the ballroom, he went almost entirely unnoticed. His equipment made him look like an adventurer, after all, as he was wearing a bunch of mismatched equipment. As strong as it was, not one of the pieces looked good together. Amidst the adventurers filling the hall, he blended right in. And there were too many people here for any of them to be able to recognize that he didn’t belong.

He didn’t have a lot of information to work with. The guards who had accompanied him had described the officers’ location as upstairs, which implied that they were somewhere near this main hall, and not down any of the expansive wings that spread out across the estate grounds. That narrowed his search, but wouldn’t answer his question entirely. Even just this building was large enough that searching it was going to be annoying.

The only definitive clue he had was that they were upstairs, so he started by walking around the staircase and climbing up to the first landing. There were a large pair of double doors there, and he poked his head in to see what lay beyond.

What he found was an extremely wide hallway that stretched on for hundreds of yards. This was one of the wings. It was lined with what looked like shop stalls manned by adventurers, and at least a hundred more of them were milling around in the space. They were moving from shop to shop to compare prices, haggling over deals, bidding each other to drive the price up on scarce goods, and trying to arrange contracts for those in need of funds to go and gather goods to bring back to the guild hall. It was a mess.

Hirrus was confident that he could have ripped through their ranks in seconds. Dozens of adventurers could have been reduced to ash by a single well-placed Civilization Buster. But he wasn’t here to kill them all. He only needed the leader.

The second landing had a pair of adventurers standing on it, leaning over the banister to look down at the ballroom. Hirrus ignored their whispered conversation, instead checking behind the doors into the next area.

Beyond these doors was a hallway, and Hirrus ventured down to investigate. It was carpeted in plush reds, and between the doors that lined the hallway were decorations. Paintings, sculptures, or low tables with vibrant potted plants atop them. It seemed promising. Boldly, he opened one of the doors, selected at random.

Unfortunately, these were no offices. What was behind the door looked more like a barracks. The room was cramped, filled with narrow bunkbeds against all four walls. In the middle there was just a small circular table with a handful of chairs.

Seated at the table were a handful of adventurers with stacks of coins near at hand. A smile pile of coins sat in the middle, and one of the group was dragging the coins towards himself, adding them to his stacks while the others groaned. It took Hirrus just a moment to recognize that they were playing cards, though he did not recognize the deck or game they were playing.

“Hey, bud,” one of the adventurers said, gathering the cards and shuffling. “Want me to deal you in? No Blind Texas Hold ‘em.”

“Don’t,” another said quickly with a laugh. “John’s on a hot streak. You can just hand him your money if you want to save some time.”

“I’m not John here,” the man with the largest pile of coins said, “In game, I’m Zog. And once I have all your money, I’m gettin’ out of this flophouse. I’m gonna live like a king!”

“As long as you don’t see a bar on the way down the street,” another grumbled. “I, for one, am happy to be supporting local breweries. I just wish I was the one drinking the beer, too.”

“I’m sorry,” Hirrus said, “I seem to have been turned around. I’m trying to find Ontario’s office.”

“I don’t think anybody goes to see him,” Zog/John said. “Not unless he sends for them.”

“That’s the thing, I was sent to talk to him,” Hirrus said. “Fidelis sent me all the way from Inoha.”

“I don’t know who that is,” the one with the deck of cards said. He gestured at an empty chair. “You in or out?”

Despite his better judgment, Hirrus took a seat. Everyone threw in a single coin, and Hirrus tossed one in as well. Cards were dealt - two to a person - and Hirrus mimicked everyone else, carefully peeking at his two cards. He was unfamiliar with this deck, but they both had numbers on them - an eight and a four - with that number of hearts on the face of the card.

“Do you know where I could find any of the officers?” Hirrus asked. “I’m sure one of them would be able to direct me to Ontario. Or determine if I’m beneath his notice.”

“Don’t look at me,” the man to the left of the dealer said, tossing another coin on the pile. “I’m new.”

Hirrus was on that man’s left, and they all looked at him expectantly. He tossed another coin in the pile, which seemed to satisfy them.

“I’ve never been,” the woman on Hirrus’s left said, tossing another coin in, “but smart money would say to just go up the stairs to the top.”

“Those fucks,” Zog/John grumbled, tossing two coins in. “Putting themselves above us for no reason. Blind luck is all they’ve got.”

The next two men tossed their cards into the center instead of coins. Hirrus didn’t understand what was happening. But he was here for information, not the game. The dealer tossed in two coins, and the man on his left tossed in another.

Those who had thrown their cards in seemed to have surrendered, but they didn’t leave the table. Hirrus suspected that if he stopped playing, they would stop talking, and he would be forced to sit until the end of the game anyway. So he threw in another coin. As did the woman beside him.

“I wouldn’t put myself up that high if I was them,” Zog/John said. He peeked at his cards for a moment and then tapped the table. “Too obvious. If they were somewhere obvious they’d be knee deep in petitioners all day begging to lick the shit off their boots and botherin’ them for favors.”

“If you were them,” Hirrus said, “where would you be? All I know for certain is upstairs.”

“Definitely up,” Zog said. “But not all the way. I think second from the top. Put something hoity-toity at the top to share and feel all charitable, but still high enough to look down and feel like I’ve got the biggest dick.”

The dealer set down three cards face-up. Hirrus didn’t know what for. One had five hearts on it, another had five diamonds shapes. The other card was different from the ones he’d seen. It had a K on it with a picture of a man. Below the K was a little bumpy shape.

As Hirrus examined the coins, attention seemed to fall on him. Had the dealer and the other man done something? He wasn’t sure, so he tossed another coin on the pile. The woman immediately threw her cards into the middle of the table. Even though it wasn’t his turn, the man on his right did as well. The dealer scoffed and made the same gesture.

Zog glared at Hirrus for a long moment. He threw two coins on the pile.

“Does anybody else have any ideas?” Hirrus ventured. He threw another coin onto the table as he looked at the others. “I need to find Ontario. You don’t want to know what Fidelis will do to me if I don’t.”

“You might not have to worry,” the dealer chuckled. “Fidelis is, as they say, offline right now.”

“Maybe that’s what the message is about,” the woman said. “Something about the Merciless One?”

Zog’s eyebrows shot up suddenly. “It is.”

“The fuck do you know?” the dealer asked.

“Because I’m a fucking god at this game,” Zog said, throwing one more coin on the pile.

“You just started two months ago,” the woman said with a laugh. “You’re barely level twenty. You don’t even know what the Merciless One is!”

“Not this game,” Zog snapped, gesturing around himself. “This game.” He tapped the pair of cards in front of him on the table. “I can read you all like fucking books. As soon as you mentioned that mercy thing, this guy lit up like Christmas.”

The dealer put another card down face-up beside the three others. Six hearts. It didn’t matter. Zog was on to him.

“What do you know about the Merciless One?” the dealer asked.

“Tell me where to find Ontario, and I’ll tell you everything I know,” Hirrus said. Unsure of what else to do, he threw another coin on the pile.

“I’ll tell you what I know,” Zog said, “you haven’t got a fucking clue how to bluff.” He gestured at the pot. “You keep raising when you should check. I know you don’t have two fives. The only reason to still be in is if you have two fives. But if you have them, you’re trying to get me to raise instead of raising yourself. But you’re raising. You’re trying to get me to fold and that tells me my cards are better than yours like you said it out loud. Use your damn head.”

“Great, the fucking psychologist is at work again,” the woman grumbled.

“Raise or call,” the dealer said, “whatcha got, John?”

“Fifteen minutes,” one of the other men said. One of the two who had tossed his cards on the first go around. “Officers have a meeting in fifteen minutes. Could catch them then easy. Maybe even Ontario, too.”

“The fuck do you know that?” the woman asked.

“How do you think?” he asked with a big grin. “I’m sleeping with one of ‘em.”

“Where can I find this meeting?” Hirrus asked.

The dealer put another card down face up. Hirrus had an odd sensation prickling at the back of his neck, telling him that the face of it changed as it was being flipped over. Regardless, once it was face up, it had seven hearts on it. Zog laughed.

“How about it?” Zog demanded. “You going to raise again? Just hand me more money?”

“Will it get me the location of this meeting?” Hirrus asked.

“If you beat Zog and wipe the smirk off his face for literally one second?” the grinning man asked. “Shit, I’ll bend over backwards to figure it out right this second. Probably literally, you know-”

“Steve!” three other people at the table barked at once. The grinning man’s grin just grew bigger.

“I’ll save you the trouble,” Zog snapped. “You can’t win. It’s mathematically impossible. You don’t have two fives. I know that for a fact. Which means you have shit.”

“Fine,” Hirrus said, “so how do I win?”

“You can’t,” Zog said. “Cards are dealt and you lost. We turn our cards over, you see that I win, I take the money and you leave all sad.”

Hirrus considered smashing the man in the face with his greataxe. It would have been more satisfying than this stupid game. Zog turned his cards over, showing one with five little pointy shapes, and another with five little bumpy shapes. Everyone sucked in a shocked breath at that.

“That’s how I know you don’t have two fives,” Zog said with a smirk. “No fives left, little fishy.”

Without any other idea how the game was played, Hirrus turned his cards over, showing his card with four hearts and card with eight hearts.

The look on Zog’s face was possibly the most flabbergasted Hirrus had ever seen a human being look in his entire existence. Everyone else’s jaws dropped open.

“AFK,” the grinning man said. “Bending over backwards for fifteen minutes.”