The interior of the guildhall wasn’t like anything Hirrus had ever expected.

His merchant guide dragged him through the glass doors and into a larger foyer that appeared to be a waiting room, with a vacant reception desk and a few rows of plain wooden seats. There were a couple of people seated who seemed upset to see Hirrus dragged past them - presumably cutting whatever queue they were in - but none of them could voice any complaint before they were through the door on the far side and into the really strange bit.

The room beyond the waiting area was like some kind of sweatshop. But instead of working with physical materials, the rows and rows of people - arranged into little sections-off sub-rooms by half-walls - were working with other people.

In this room, dozens of negotiations were taking place. Crafters were negotiating the purchase of materials from the guild, seemingly ignorant to the fact that less than thirty feet away, the guild was negotiating the purchase of those same materials for half the price from an adventurer looking to offload the gains of his latest trip into the wilderness southeast of the city.

“Steve?” one of the merchants said, looking over at the man dragging Hirrus along. “Steve? Where are you going? Is someone watching the door? Shouldn’t you be-”

“Fuck off, Anshi,” the merchant snapped. “This is bigger than reception desk bullshit. I’m going to the top!”

The other merchant tried to protest, but Hirrus and Steve were out of earshot - amidst the din of a hundred negotiations - in seconds. Steve marched his way past two other protestors who tried to ask what he was doing, taking Hirrus into a narrow stairwell on the corner of the building. Hirrus expected to ascend to the higher floors of the building, but instead they went down the stairs, going underground.

Hirrus was actually impressed by that. Other adventurers had seemed to believe that elevation equaled superiority. The other guilds he’d faced had tall buildings with their lairs and meeting halls at the top of dramatic stairwells.

Silent Partners rightly recognized that security was more important.

Hirrus couldn’t have blasted his way to Keynes from outside if the man was secured in an underground bunker.

He started to believe that perhaps Nidra had been right to fear them. If all of their security measures were this much better than the others he’d faced, he might find that he was going to talk his way past a challenge he could not have outmuscled.

They passed three doors on the way down. One was marked basement, then sub-basement. The third was likely called the sub-sub basement, but instead of the full words, the sign only said “SSBM” accompanied by a picture of a mustachioed man in overalls fighting a chubby yellow monster.

Steve led Hirrus down through the fourth door, strangely called the “super basement.”

The super basement featured another waiting room, though this one was significantly nicer. Instead of just a few rows of cheap wooden chairs, these chairs were padded, and the room was decorated with paintings and potted plants. Behind the reception desk was a dark-skinned man in fine silk robes, with a meticulously-manicured beard.

“Battuta,” Steve said, moving straight to the reception desk. “When’s the next window for me to talk to Keynes. I have an offer for him he can’t refuse.”

“Um,” the man behind the desk said, sarcasm obvious in his voice, even as he pantomimed checking a document that was clearly just a blank sheet of paper. “Never? Are you available never? Because Keynes is.”

“This is big, man,” Steve said, leaning over the desk and lowering his voice - even though the waiting area was otherwise empty. “This guy has a bead on the Merciless one. He slipped through Battle Orders' hands - and cut off a few fingers on the way out. We can be the heroes of this whole event. That’s gotta be worth a minute of his time, right?”

“Okay.” The man screwed up his face like he’d just bitten into an unpeeled lemon. “That is pretty big.”

“So go find me space to tell him,” Steve insisted. “And let me take all the heat. Say I forced you. Threatened you. Put all the blame on me for whatever I’m interrupting. Say whatever you want. I want you to.” Steve gave a fierce grin. “I want every ounce of credit for this. Even if I have to take a fall for it in the morning, I want to be the one reaping the rewards tonight.”

“You present a compelling argument,” Battuta said, itching at his beard. “You know what might happen if Keynes isn’t interested, right?”

“I know,” Steve said, that vicious grin plastered across his face from ear to ear. “That’s why this is win-win for you. You want to eliminate the competition for the next opening off the reception team? Go ahead and get me demoted. And if you want to be a piece of history, let me through and we can be on the front page of every Conquest of Souls news site for the next six months. You can’t lose.”

Batttuta grimaced, clearly embarrassed that Steve had recognized his less-than-friendly desires.

Despite the call out, the man stood up and came around the desk.

“You’re right,” Battuta said, “I’d be a fool to let this opportunity pass. Either way it goes is fine with me.” He gestured at the nearest seats in the empty waiting area. “Go ahead and wait here. I’ll let you know what he says.”

Steve seemed to be practically vibrating with excitement as he moved to the nearest chair and struggled to sit still.

With no other options as Battuta left the room through the far door, Hirrus took a seat as well.

“This is it, man,” Steve said, though it seemed to be mostly to himself. “The big time. Just don’t fuck it up, bro. You got this.” He was rocking back and forth, excitement clearly building. “I am worthy of what I desire. I am worthy of what I desire. You got this. You got this.”

“Are you alright?” Hirrus found himself asking. The development of the man’s behavior made very little sense. As much as Hirrus knew how this was going to end, he was curious despite himself. What was going on in his head?

“I’m fuckin’ great, bro,” the man said. His excited and strangely friendly tone reminded Hirrus briefly of Alric. “The more I think about this, the more I can see this unfolding in front of me. This is the dream. This is my way to the top. Take big risks, earn big gains, right? I could get kicked from the guild for this. But if Keynes understands what this means? I could be his right hand tomorrow morning. I could be executive chairman of kicking ass and taking names, you know what I mean?”

He looked over at Hirrus for a second before shaking his head. “Of course not. You’re just a bunch of pixels. You don’t know shit.”

Hirrus heaved a sigh at that. He didn’t like the way adventurers assumed that people unlike them were objects. But he couldn’t really object to it now. If he were actually a simple merchant, his decision tree would never let him give voice to any complaint.

All he was here for was to negotiate a payday. He had to keep in mind a motivation like what Barin would have. First: survival. Second: profit. Third, apparently: smutty books.

“Is there anything to read in here?” Hirrus asked, trying to give the line the bored, repetitive tone of the familiar phrases his hypothetical merchant decision tree would feed him.

Steve apparently decided it was time to ignore Hirrus and focus on his positive mantras for ten straight minutes. Things like “I am worthy of what I desire” and “nothing to it but to do it” and “my business dreams are constantly manifesting” were repeated over and over quietly to himself. Every one seemed to fill the man with more undirected energy. If he had been practically vibrating before, he looked like an overexcited wreck now.

“If this is going to be an important business meeting,” Hirrus ventured, “perhaps you should be calming yourself down instead of building yourself up.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Steve snapped, “the fuck do you know, you goddamn robot.”

Hirrus was tempted to just kill the man and put an end to his prattling, but he was going to make finding Keynes much more difficult. Just as he believed Hirrus’s information was his ticket to greatness, this man was Hirrus’s ticket past whatever unseen defenses were still between him and the guild leader.

Instead, he just repeated. “Is there anything to read in here?” Mimicking the same bored tone as before.

Even though Steve had rebuffed Hirrus’s input, the man did take some steps to calm himself down. He focused more on breathing his repetition of mindless platitudes. It made Hirrus feel a bit more confident. If this man was supposed to get him past Keynes’s defenses, then he needed him to be calm and rational, not in the midst of a manic episode.

Five more minutes passed, and Steve was back to a more reasonable state of mind.

Then five more minutes passed.

And five more minutes after that.

After it had been half an hour since Battuta had left, Steve started to get antsy again.

“Fuck,” the man cursed, checking his wrist for some unknown reason. “What is going on?”

Sensing the man’s impatience reaching a match for Hirrus’s own, he realized what was happening.

“They know,” Hirrus said.

“What?” Steve demanded. “They know what? Does someone else know where the Merciless One is? Did I get fucking scooped? Did Battuta go behind my back and find someone to steal my whole fucking plan?”

Hirrus was a bit impressed that the man had found a way to reason his way into this being his plan instead of Hirrus’s.

Nevertheless, it seemed like the plan was ruined.

Whether because someone had an item like the disc headband the Battle Orders lieutenant had worn, or the ruby goggles that the guard at the door had, someone must have identified him.

And if they knew he was here, they were stalling to tighten whatever noose they had that Nidra was afraid of. If they were truly indomitable, then he couldn’t let them pull the rope taut on their own terms.

“I suppose it’s time,” Hirrus grumbled, pushing up to his feet. “I only hope that this is close enough.”

“Time for what?” Steve yelled, leaping to his own feet, his face a picture of confusion. “What are you doing?”

“You got me this far,” Hirrus said, “and I suppose I should be grateful. But I don’t have time to sit and wait.”

“The fuck are you talking about?” Steve demanded. He pulled out an ornate jeweled athame, menacing Hirrus with it. “You don’t get to leave this room! Not until I know where the Merciless one is!”

“Your terms are acceptable,” Hirrus said, drawing his hooked sword and icy greataxe.