Trim pushed her way through the door to the hotel lobby while ignoring the glare from the plainly dressed attendant that stood inside. Stifling a yawn while readjusting the plain dress that she had worn the week before, she casually ran her eye over the interior. The hotel was a reasonably small place with heavy wooden beams that ran in neat rows above her while a pitched ceiling that stretched upwards sat on top. A fire crackled inside a stone hearth which was set in the corner of the room despite the warm late afternoon air, the pattern in the stonework merging into the walls before fanning out around them like petrified tentacles. There was only a smattering of people that sat in small groups around the lobby, but that was to be expected. Travelers seemed to rotate through the plate rather quickly as the locals were often openly hostile to their presence.

“Can I help you?” the attendant asked for the second time, pausing with a tinge of nervousness as Trim turned to face him with a cold gaze.

“I’m looking for the group that turned up last week,” she said as she looked around the lobby, disappointed that she hadn’t found who she was looking for. Before being kicked out from the Royal District, Reina had quickly flipped through her notes before telling her that this was where they would find who they were looking for.

And Reina was usually right.

“The bar,” he replied with a nervous nod in the direction of a door which sat in the far wall. Without another word he disappeared, quickly making himself scarce which left Trim chuckling. It seemed like who she was looking for had left the staff rather nervous.

“Ready?” she sighed as she looked back over her shoulder to see that Svanda was admiring a small stained glass window which was set into the door. It was quite fancy for the Merchant District, although at the same time it seemed that the people on Zaffre’s Moat were much better in general with such outdated techniques. Like Trim, Svanda had changed out from her usual utilitarian gear into a loose-fitting grey shirt and simple brown pants. It was still obvious that they were travelers due to the rifle that Svanda kept slung over her shoulder, but that was unavoidable.

“Ready,” she nodded as she ignored the curious gazes from the rest of the staff in the lobby. Moving behind Trim to the small door in the far wall, she glanced at the signboard which read ‘BAR’ hanging above it before taking a deep breath and following her through.

Stepping inside the bar, the pair found themselves in a dimly lit rectangular space that stretched away from them. The smell of smoke and liquor hung in the air as a testament to the nature of the hideaway, although the surfaces were contrastingly clean. A wooden countertop ran along the entire room to their right, while a line of wooden booths sat on their left. Most of the booths were empty, in fact they were all empty besides the booth at the very end of the room. This booth, however, contained exactly who Trim and Svanda were looking for.

“Mind if we have a chat?” Trim asked as her feet padded across the stone floor, walking the length of the bar before stopping in front of the table at the end of the room. She turned to gaze at the man who sat in the middle of the group with a practiced smile on her face, trying not to seem nervous. She could feel Svanda’s presence behind her, and although she wouldn’t admit it, it was helping her to remain relaxed.

“I don’t see what there is to chat about,” Ormain replied blandly as he studied the pair with little interest. “I haven’t seen you before.”

“We haven’t seen you before either,” Trim lied with a shrug. “But it’s hard not to hear about you when we’re looking for the same people.”

Unlike Reina’s group, Ormain and his team hadn’t bothered to change into even slightly discreet clothing. Although they had shed some of the heavier jackets that they had worn in the Badlands, the basic shirts and pants that they had worn underneath remained the same. While that wasn’t an issue in itself, the now openly flaunted array of uncovered weaponry was rather intimidating.

Ormain paused as he mulled over Trim’s response, thinking for a moment before motioning with a nod of his head to the two men and the woman who sat opposite him. After watching on as they stood and then moved off in the direction of the bar, he gestured with his palm in the direction of the newly vacated bench.

“Sit.”

Reina’s plan had been outside of the box. If anyone knew what had happened to Nina, Ormain and his sources around the district were almost certainly the group most likely to know. If they themselves were actually the ones that had picked her up, Trim and Svanda would not only be able to confirm what had happened to Nina but also try and glean some information about the situation that they could take back to Reina. If they really did need to plan an assault on Ormain and his group, the more information they had to work with the better. If they were really lucky, they might even be able to find out where Nina was and consider staging a rescue on the spot.

After Reina had outlined the plan, they had all agreed that it was a risky move which was unfortunately their best option. Trim and Svanda would go and ask them directly what had happened, hoping that their descriptions hadn’t been provided to Ormain in detail by people from the Badlands. It was likely that they hadn’t, as he had probably thought that he just needed to be pointed in the direction of the flying circus before filling in the rest of the details himself. The fact that Trim and Svanda had been sitting out of sight on the roof of Juicer now provided them with an out that they would have never thought possible.

“Ale,” Trim said to the bartender as she ignored the urge to admire Ormain’s enchanting features, sliding into the seat before Svanda sat beside her. Although their side of the seat had been vacated, Ormain still wasn’t alone. Shalan, the irritable woman from their previous encounter, hung off his arm while openly shooting a hostile glare in their direction.

“Before we start anything I’d like to clarify a few things,” Ormain said as he leaned back against the seat rest while examining the assault rifle that Svanda had left resting against the seat. “Firstly, who are you? That thing isn’t cheap.”

“Does that really matter?” Trim asked as she watched the bartender place two glasses of ale on the table. “What matters is that we’re looking for the same thing.”

“Think of it as a trust thing,” Ormain replied casually before pointing at his hair. “It isn’t like you don’t know who we are, is it?”

Trim smiled at his response, not surprised at the question. Reina had run them through this scenario as quickly as possible before they had been kicked out of the Royal District, trying to predict how the meeting would flow if they weren’t recognized. To keep their image up, Trim and Svanda had even asked to be dropped through a different gate so that the group wouldn’t be seen together. Thankfully it looked like they had done enough to get them through the door, but they both knew that it was still a delicate situation. Pushing for the wrong information, having holes in their cover stories, or showing that they knew too much could all leave them exposed.

“We’re bounty hunters,” she replied vaguely before taking a sip from her glass. “There’s a private bounty out on one of the members, one that they don’t know about.”

“Do you mind if I ask which member?”

“One of the pair, is that specific enough?” Trim replied before she placed her glass down. They had already agreed to use Jade and Aline as the opening bait because it was information that Ormain already had. If their guess that Ormain’s eyes were in the shopping district was correct, there would be no doubt to him that this recent information was at least believable, while he had also seen them on KF-14. Furthermore, her statement was also vague enough that it would seem as though Trim didn’t want to give away information for free.

“It’s plausible, but it doesn’t explain why you’re here. Why not just wait in Luem?”

He’s really trying to trip me up, Trim sighed internally. Thankfully Reina had told her to expect questions like this.

“We don’t know Luem very well,” she said as she nodded at Svanda. “Finding them there would be difficult.”

“So that’s how it is,” Ormain shrugged in response as he glanced at Svanda. “Fortunately for you, I know how you feel. So what do you want to know and what can you offer in return?”

Trim kept her poker face up even though she was smiling inside. They had wormed their way in, but this was where the conversation would become dangerous to navigate. It would only take one mistake to leave the pair of them surrounded by a group of suits without backup, and that was a situation which they wouldn’t be able to escape from.

“We want to know anything you’ll give us about four of the members,” Trim began while trying to sound casual. “Anything on either of the pair of course, but also anything you have on the leader or the newest member.”

Ormain raised an eyebrow at the request before his eyes flicked to the bartender, nodding his head before his attention returned to Trim. “You don’t know their names?”

“That’s information,” Trim smiled as she watched the bartender place another pair of glasses before Ormain and Shalan. “It isn’t free.”

“How about you tell us if you don’t want a hole in your skull?” Shalan asked as she casually withdrew a pistol from her shoulder holster before placing it on the table. “You don’t think you can just walk out of here, do you?”

Even though Trim was nervous inside, she chuckled lightly before taking another sip of her ale, using the pause for dramatic effect. “Let’s be honest here, shall we? If we had enough information to solve our problems, we wouldn’t be here asking you for help. If you had enough information, you wouldn’t be entertaining this conversation in the first place. If we work together, we can both take what we want and then split up like we never met. It’s the easiest solution isn’t it?”

“Calm down,” Ormain said as he put a hand on Shalan’s shoulder before looking back at Trim and Svanda. “You don’t care about information on the others?”

He’s fishing here, Trim thought to herself. If their information was correct, Ormain didn’t even know how many people there were in the group. He knew about Nina, Jade, and Aline from their meeting on KF-14, while he knew about Reina from the Badlands. Anything past that, unless their intel was wrong, was new ground for him. The most encouraging thing, however, was that Ormain was talking to them in the first place. If they already had Nina and were satisfied with what they had, he probably would have told them to get lost.

“No, we’re not interested,” she replied. She was throwing him a bone by letting him conclude that there were at least two more members, but she needed to make concessions. It was better to let him think that he had the upper hand anyway as she had no idea how he would react if he felt pressured. Faking the weak hand wasn’t such a bad position to be in if it dropped his guard.

Ormain looked at her before pausing for a second. “Is there a reason why you don’t need their information?”

“They’re not close enough to drag who we’re looking for out,” Trim sighed. The sigh was partly a façade, but also partly genuine as she was inferring that she herself didn’t care about Jade and Aline. It was a lie, naturally, but this had always been their intended method of approach. It would be impossible for Ormain to have recent information on Reina as she hadn’t left the estate, while Jade and Aline had been out of reach in the Royal District. He wouldn’t know that they were trying to funnel his thoughts, but after chalking off the other members, the only person that he would have left to provide any information on was Nina.

If he didn’t have everything he wanted already, that was.