“I’m telling you, there’s no proof either either way. Going after him is outside our jurisdiction and a waste of manpower.” Somewhere within the dank slums of Glaucen beneath the ancient streets of the old city, a man with a dashing face spoke to his peers. Truly blonde hair, unlike the light brown of many of the populace, he kept it clean and several inches long. On his angular, but not harsh face, two radiant blue eyes were symmetrically set on either side of his nose. Of all the things in the setting of the clandestine meeting, he was doubtless the most appealing. Not that the dark and filthy room, or his scarred companions made for any real competition.

“Damn it Harsier! You think that shit’s going to fly with the boss?” Dom roared, pounding his fist with enough force to shake the wooden table they sat around. “We worked for months to get that core, we need to do something to get it back and soon!”

“You’re far too quick to act, that’s why you have such an ugly, scarred face.” The third member of the table spoke with a venomous tongue, chiding the head of The Poran’s brute squad. “But Harsiar, you should realize that not everything can absolute. He is correct that we need to retrieve the core. Even if there is no proof, we need to pursue all possible leads before it truly escapes our grasp.”

“Just like you to take the middle road. You’re too indecisive, there are times to act and times to hold back. We only have so much manpower, and taxes are rising. Our focus should be on making sure we meet the expenses already in place, not creating additional ones.” Harsiar, the head of The Poran’s information gathering and thieving divisions, had a head for math and kept a close eye on the organization’s ledgers. Near the top, he fully recognized that criminal businesses like theirs didn’t create goods, only redistributed them. They were kept around as a hand in the shadows for the church and guilds that could afford them, but with the possibility of a war, well, they weren’t exactly a stable asset.

For Harsiar, the top priority of The Poran was to keep him out of that sort of trouble, with delivering him a comfortable life a close second. The organization wasn’t built around him though, so he naturally extended those priorities to those above and at the same level as him. They certainly had spent a great deal on acquiring the core, but with it lost and its whereabouts unknown, it would be throwing good money after bad.

“Hmmph! Then what do you have in mind Stanamore? We agree that we need the core back, and you’re the one who plans things, so how do you expect us to get it back?”

“Agree with you? Hardly, I was merely pointing out that you were both acting foolishly. I do take the correct side that Harsier just happens to be on.”

“Slimy bastard, why don’t you speak clearly? You said it yourself, we need to retrieve the core!”

“You imbecile, that’s our goal in the longer term. We can’t afford sending out entire search parties.”

“More, I swear if you don’t abide by what you advise, I’ll make sure the next time you wake up, it will be without a tongue.”

“Silence.” A new voice echoed off the brick walls of the basement. The only piece of furnishing with any quality at all in the secluded room was the sturdy wooden door, reinforced with bands of metal. In the heat of the argument the clicking of the lock had gone unheard, and a small and thin person appeared in the frame.

“Boss.” The three heads of The Poran greeted the figure in unison, ceasing their bickering. Stanamore got up to lock the door behind their boss, this time engaging the numerous deadbolts and chain locks along it.

“We will be searching for the core. The mage’s presence in Ghel Square may have been coincidence, but it is still worth following up. If we can force him to join The Poran then all the better.”

“He defied us, first by walking through our territory and then by fighting off our men. Even if the first may be understood as the act of a foreigner, his actions in the second case were far too unpredictable.”

“I thought you were just saying that not everything can be absolute?”

“I’m against it as well, he injured our men badly. There’s no place for him among The Poran…”

“I don’t care what your opinions are.” The already cold underground dropped by a few degrees, and a wave of terror swept over the three seated around the table. Stanamore stilled his rattling tongue, and Dom clenched his fists, like an animal preparing to fight. Harsiar didn’t experience the full weight of the fear this time, but having experienced it before, couldn’t help but try and imagine how he might escape. “I am in charge here. Harsiar, send two groups skilled in abduction and questioning after him. Given his abilities, make sure they don’t lack combat skills of their own.”

“Yes boss. I have several groups that fit that criteria perfectly.” Harsiar responded in affirmation to their cold leader.

“In the meantime, use half of your men to scour the city. It will be a joint operation with Stanamore to discover if there were any other powers at work. The mage may have been framed, see how the rest of the underworld is reacting. Stanamore, ask your merchant friends about possible news of another core while the information is being gathered. So long as the organization survives, you must retrieve it at any cost. Only once we have the other core in hand is this order rendered void.”

“Yes boss.” Stanamore wisely kept from voicing any complaints he had.

“As for you Dom, begin doubling down on collecting what is owed us. Ten or twenty percent should suffice. Those with outstanding debts should be ‘shipped out’, and further increase the rates of those taking out loans. Don’t totally destroy our long-term investments, but we need to survive the short term first.”

“Yes boss!”

“Now on to the regular matters…”

For the next hour or so, Harsiar and the others discussed the more mundane manners of The Poran. Dom’s enforcers had been breaking a few more limbs than usual as taxes, and thus prices, and loans had risen. Stanamore’s schemes had been upended once or twice by the increase in bandits, but of course he had long since hedged his bets and ended up bringing a greater profit than usual to the company. Harsiar and his men more or less kept pace with the changes for the moment.

At the end, the three handed over all their proceeds to the boss, who then returned their share. They gratefully accepted what they received, which had been calculated by the boss’ perception of their reports. Even if they found the amount only mediocre, they didn’t have any hidden away. Which of them would dare to skim funds from him?

After which, they let the boss leave first, and remained a little while longer. Stanamore left first, leaving Harsiar and Dom. Oil lamps flickered, the unpleasant smell of the fuel still preferable to that of the rest of the underground. Dom repeatedly jabbed at the table leaving mark after mark; he was probably why the thing was in such poor condition.

“How are they?” In a low voice, Dom eventually decided to speak. Harsiar sighed. They all genuinely disliked each other, but in the end there was still a bond of fellowship, however tenuous.

“Jordan and Rickert will recovery, they only really suffered a few bruises. Taylor on the other hand...he’s expected to live, but a full recovery isn’t guaranteed. It’s not even sure that a healing incantation would do any good.”

“Where in Kunocht did that mage come from?” Slamming the dagger for the last time into the table, the blade snapped. Dom’s absurd strength and constant abuse finally pushed the thing past its limits and ended up holding only a handle while the blade remained lodged in the wood. “Taking out three men, and he hardly used any of his devilish magic! If he is brought back here, I’ll be sure to repay him twice over!”

“From what I gather, pain doesn’t seem to affect him.” Harsiar could only see Dom as a fool, as soon as the boss left, he was right back to acting defiant. Well, in the end it didn’t seem like he would actually act on those emotions. Instead, he worried about the foreign mage as well. “Everyone at the scene described him as calm throughout, totally silent aside from his spells until the very end. Despite gaping wounds that all were able to see, he didn’t cry out once until struck in his own chest down to the hilt. Even then that was a ploy to finish Taylor.”

“If pain won’t work then there are other ways to break a man. I’ll find them, and make him wish he’d gotten on his knees to lick my boots instead of resisting.”

“For some reason, I doubt that will work either.”

The thought of it all gave Harsiar the shivers. Sure he’d heard, and even seen in some cases, the excessive resilience of members of the Church. Blows meant to leave gashes left slight lines, infernos turned the skin slightly red, deadly poisons barely slowed them. They shrugged of attacks like a boulder.

The foreign mage on the other hand...when he was cut he bled. It seemed bleeding was the only effect of the wounds. In the reports, the mage’s arm was able to be crippled, but even that didn’t stop his fighting, or slow him down at all. What sort of madman lets a dagger impale him to the hilt just for a counterstrike? To walk it off as though nothing happened just one or two minutes afterward, whoever it was could only be described as a monster.

The fight hadn’t fazed him in the least, he’d just gone on his way. Even if he didn’t know who The Poran are, how could he be used to being put in a life and death situation? It was as if he half expected them, and considered it a normal situation! More so than the rest, Harsiar felt like they absolutely needed to keep from engaging with him in hostilities.

Dom felt the opposite, and wanted revenge for the incapacitation of his subordinate.

“Craven bastard, do you think he’s Tias himself? He’s just a mage. Tell me once you’ve dragged him back here so I can deal with him on my own.”

Harsiar watched as the burly and scarred brute stormed out of the basement. He continued to sit there, even as the lamps began to sputter out. In time darkness claimed the room, but the heads of The Poran were not so incompetent that he would be unable to find his way out. Instead he sat there, trying to think of who to send on the mission after that mage.

In the evening, he had six men, and one woman before him. Three from an abduction squad, and four from an information gathering and interrogation squad. The two groups cooperated on numerous occasions to capture and ‘negotiate’ with high profile merchants and guildmasters. In terms of combat potential, they could defeat a paladin or hold off several for half an hour. Not that they had a history of going up against The Church, that was merely the evaluation the boss had given them one day after hearing a report.

He gave them their orders.

“Find the foreign mage with the long dark hair in a ponytail. He wears rather simple clothes, and should have a crippled left arm, as well as a serious wound to the abdomen. The target seems to have a fantastic resistance to pain, so take that into account. His magical abilities are unknown, other than that he has the ability to magically clean his clothes and to temporarily stun his opponents for several seconds.

“When you find him, the primary task is to interrogate him and see if he knows where the location of the core is. If possible, we are also seeking to recruit him; forcibly if necessary. Whatever you do, use the utmost caution. He is unpredictable, don’t expect him to act normally.”

Now all he could do was wait, and hope that Stanamore found a core they could grab without great losses.

A/N:AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! Hey, I just finished chapter 50! Have another chapter! Do the reviews and stuff too. That'd be good, yo.