Nalt and the others sat around a table with a map of the southern coast of the continent while Commander Igrasa Vencot traced out the route for their proposed mission. The musty pale blue stone room in the Gadisian military headquarters was cramped with the better part of a dozen people in it, but it was certainly better than the dungeons. And it wasn't as though Nalt and the others cared about having a new employer, given that fact.

"Now, the this city here, Sicahn, is the location of a blacksmith operation that appears to be working on enchanted armor," Igrasa said, her bony index finger jabbing at that point on the map. She then pushed back from the map and scanned the former members of the erstwhile Red Blade mercenary company with her deep brown eyes. "We want you to find the operation, destroy it, and, most of all kill, those engaged in this enchantment."

"Eh, pardon," Grenna laughed, throwing her red hair back. "Enchantment? What's that exactly?"

"It's..." Igrasa began to explain, but Mastohlt immediately talked over her.

"Imbuing ordinary things with the power of the Auras," he pompously interjected, running his hand through his luxurious mane of blue green hair. "I don't know how to actually do it myself, but I've heard about the theory from others. I'd imagine they're especially trying to make armor that intrinsically wards the wearer from Aura attacks?"

Nalt swallowed a sigh and rolled his eyes.

"That's correct," Igrasa muttered, swallowing her palpable irritation. "Obviously, this would give Duronaht's army an advantage over our allies and our own army and we can't have that. This isn't the only site of such activity, but every little bit counts. The other possible raids I mentioned earlier are to be your alternatives in the event you can't strike at Sicahn."

"And what's stationed there? How many men?" Grenna inquired, poking her finger at the pristine map. "You haven't mentioned that yet."

Igrasa breathed deeply and blinked slowly.

"Approximately one regiment. Five hundred men," she said quickly. Grenna and Mastohlt both gasped, while Nalt and Wella exchanged a worried glance. "I'm attaching an additional twenty of men to your people for support, but I don't think I need to tell you that this isn't an effort to take the city by force. There's a full division stationed just up the road and a large force would undoubtedly scare off our real targets anyway. The ones enchanting these pieces of equipment, we think about a dozen or so mages, are what's essential here."

"Wouldn't capturing theme be an option?" Mastohlt asked, scratching at his nose. "It would seem to me that..."

"If possible and it doesn't jeopardize the mission of neutralizing them, absolutely, but we have no reason to doubt that these are people loyal to Duronaht and his cause. They won't go gladly and mages are always dangerous," Igrasa scowled. "Grenna, will you be ready to depart tomorrow?"

Scanning her subordinates, Grenna smiled.

"Not a problem!" she exclaimed. Then she let out a deep breath. "But I might need something for my stomach. Winter seas this time of year are, um, a bit choppy to say the least."

"I know, but it can't be helped. An overland route is out of the question," Igrasa emphasized. "It would take too long and it would go through an active front where our forces are engaged with the enemy."

"Ah. Understood," Grenna conceded, holding her hands up. "Via boat it is then. And our payment?"

At the mention of compensation, Igrasa narrowed her eyes and simply turned toward the door, her silver and green robes waving behind her.

"We'll talk about that when you return successfully," the commander said before she reached the door. She then pivoted about and nodded her head. "Given the way the world is now, though, you should probably spend more time thinking about how none of that matters very much anymore."

After Igrasa departed, Nalt watched Grenna pace around the room, her hands behind her back flapping wildly. The others began whispering to one another, besides Mastohlt. He cleared his throat as he stood by the map table and called the others to attention, Grenna included.

"I say, Grenna, this doesn't sound like the sort of thing that will ever pay well, does it?" he quipped. "Beyond that, we..."

"Oh, shut up," Grenna groaned, massaging the back of her own neck and grunting. Nalt chuckled at her dismissal, drawing a smile from her. "You know, all of you, that the commander's right. This idea we'll all get nice stacks of coin and buy ourselves little islands off the coast to grow old in isn't how this is going. I was joking when I even asked her."

"Then, what's the point?" Bafan at last offered his thoughts, his blue-skinned face cringing.

"The point, my dear Bafan, is that we set ourselves up to collect on favors if and when this ever ends," she laughed. "I don't know that it will, by the way."

"Will what?" Bafan asked.

"End. I don't know that this thing ends. Now or ever, not in our lifetimes, anyway. For now it just keeps spreading, sucking more and more and more people in," Grenna motioned with her hands as though the world were a whirlpool. "If you think we're just going to be able to sit it out or that money will buy us out of our troubles, you've got another thing coming."

Ovigon, slouched in his chair, had also remained quiet the whole time, but he cleared his phlegm-choked throat to speak.

"Grenna's right. The last several weeks have clarified a lot of things for me," he said in his nasally voice, his wild gray eyes shooting from one person to another while he spoke. "I spent so much of my life learning the way things were, the systems, the practices. I could make sense of what was happening and offer advice accordingly. We're beyond all of that now. This world is changing more that I've ever thought it could. I have no concept of what comes next. However, I do know that the way we used to look at the world is dead and gone."

Silence fell over the room for the next few moments while the others tried to think of responses to Ovigon. Nalt especially kept an eye on Mastohlt, who shifted his jaw back and forth again and again.

"I say, I don't think I much like the sounds of this new world you speak of," Mastohlt grumbled.

"Hey, Mastohlt, I don't think the world cares what you think," Grenna spat, drawing laughs from the room, Nalt and Wella, especially. "Seriously, though, stop thinking about quickly getting rich. That's not on the table at the moment. We're damn lucky to be alive. Don't forget that. Now, prepare for our voyage and brace yourself. This will be a tough one."

Grenna's comment about the winter seas being choppy proved more than prescient. The Gadisian sloop they used was a sturdy vessel, but even it was tossed about in the tempestuous waves south of the coast. Those cold stiff winds from the continent swept down upon the sea mercilessly, causing constant high waves that seemed to threaten to capsize the boat. Ovigon tried to assure Nalt that there was virtually no chance of that happening, but Nalt's fears didn't abate. He vomited several times out one of the windows on the lower deck.

During one of his trips to expel whatever was left in his stomach, he saw two peculiar serpentine fish, glowing iridescent green and yellow, riding the waves just off the ship. He wasn't sure what these large fish were doing, but he assumed it must've been a mating dance of some sort.

"Don't let me interrupt you," he gasped as his throat contracted and pushed up viscous wad of white and yellow goo that he launched into the sea. "Sorry 'bout that."

Grenna sat on a barrel next to Bafan and Wella on the opposite side of the polished, though creaky, wooden deck. She drank from the bottle some Karmandian Iron Tears the Gadisians were nice enough to provide for the mission.

"Were you talking to yourself, Nalt?" Wella asked, her dark skin crumpling in concern.

"Oh, I... I was just talking to some fish," he answered sheepishly, his voice hoarse from the spew that had stripped his throat.

"That's hardly the craziest thing I've seen you do," Grenna chuckled.

"You're definitely a strange one, Nalt," Bafan chimed in, smirking. He then gave Nalt a head-to-toe glance. "Honestly, though, I imagine that you can be part of our way into the city. Big strong men like you are always useful and I'm sure someone there has use for muscle."

"It's either that or we somehow sneak in," Wella offered while Nalt decided to lay down on the deck. Even though it creaked, it at least he didn't feel like he was losing his balance.

Grenna alternated between nodding and shaking her head, her deep red hair swaying across her face.

"Yes and no," she said. "The options are sneak, bribe, bluff, or force our way in. Force isn't credible since we don't have the men. Sneaking would be nice if we knew who the mages we're after were in advance, but we'll need time and if we're discovered to have gotten in illegally, well... That won't go well. Bribes? Hmmmm.... I have a few thousand Nimors that Igrasa gave me just in case. I think it's bluff. Obviously, we can't do the whole crew with the twenty Gadisians because that's just ridiculous. They camp hidden outside, probably under Ovigon, and we signal them when we need them for a distraction."

"The distraction thing? Again?" Nalt groaned.

"That wasn't the part of our plan that didn't work last time," Grenna scolded him, wagging her finger and then taking a swig out of the red glass bottle. She winced a little as she swallowed, blinking her eyes a few times before speaking again. "It'll work. Trust me. The hard part is, of course, finding the mages and figuring out a good chance to get them. I don't want to plan too much in advance because, I'll be honest, I don't know a lot about Sicahn. Never cared to."

"I guess we're about to find out, aren't we?" Wella sighed. She took the bottle when offered it by Grenna and swigged down her share. "To making it up as we go along, right?"

"Cheers," Nalt laughed while raising a fictitious glass.

With the low visibility weather and the vast coastline, landing the ship was an easy enough task without drawing the attention of whatever military forces were in the region. A persistent icy rain fell across the wooded and hilly terrain of the southern coast while they made for Sicahn, tucked into the eponymous Sicahn Bay.

Grenna decided to add Mastohlt to her party while leading Ovigon to manage the rest of her former company and the twenty Gadisian soldiers off on their own path to the city's outskirts. Ovigon mentioned that he was aware of some caves where they could take refuge from the weather while Grenna approached the city. With the icy pellets of rain continuing to batter his eyes and skin, Nalt nearly pleaded with Grenna to let him go with Ovigon instead.

As it was, he kept trudging along in that loathsome weather at the head of the group with Mastohlt behind him and the others taking up the rear. A heavier downpour at one point lead him to turn around to Mastohlt.

"Isn't there anything you can do about this?" he pleaded, motioning up at the sky. "Anything with fire?"

Mastohlt, keeping his face dry with a hood hanging well over his face, glared at Nalt.

"My dear Nalt, do you really think I hadn't thought about that?" he replied, mocking Nalt's tone and cadence. "It's not that easy."

"Or are you just not that good?" Nalt winked.

Scowling, Mastohlt drew from his pouch a couple of dry roots, which quickly became damp as the ice pellets raining down melted on them. It appeared to not matter as Mastohlt threw them into the air and ignited them. A whirling disc of flames lasted above them for a brief time, turning to steam each droplet that hit it. After a few seconds, it dissipated and the rains resumed falling upon them. Grenna and the others jointly shook their heads at the display.

"There. You see the problem, Nalt?" Mastohlt bitingly asked.

"I do now, thanks," Nalt mumbled and turned around to resume his march.

They came upon the stone road leading to Sicahn just as the weather began to clear. The city itself was tucked behind a line of steep rocky hills surrounding Sicahn Bay with the entrance secured by short section of wall about fifteen feet high. Nalt wondered what the point of that even was except to create the illusion of security.

Grenna took the lead, with Nalt and Mastohlt to her right and left and Bafan and Wella behind her. Her slick leather boots kept almost losing their footing on the icy stones, but she managed to avoid ever tumbling. As she approached, she waved to the guards standing in front of the gate while they inspected a carriage just about to enter the city.

"Hey there!" she shouted, waving both hands high. One of the guards, wearing a red cloak with dark gray iron armor and a tattered plumed helmet, looked away from the carriage and toward her. "Mind if we dry off here?"

The guard, a tall thin man, awkwardly stepped forward on the slippery path. Others, including those on the wall, barely even so much as glanced at Grenna and her party.

"You've walked here? In this weather?" he asked incredulously, his slow plodding voice getting partially drowned out by the wind. "Are you all mad?"

"It wasn't by choice," Grenna laughed. "Gadisian raid on our fishing boat. They thought we had contraband and didn't care that we didn't. Put a hole in us, we beached, and got here. Dirty fuckers."

"Hmph, that sounds like Gadisia," he growled. "I assume you've got no papers."

"Unfortunately not. Didn't think I'd need them, but apparently these seas aren't free anymore," Grenna scoffed. "I assume, though, you have employers in this city working for labor and my crew here, well, they're very good with their hands."

Mastohlt shuddered as Grenna said that, forcing Nalt to suppress his smile.

"It's not like I speak with the merchants, but I'm sure they do," he glanced over each of them as he spoke. "There's not much on any of you."

"Again, we weren't expecting to be in this situation," Grenna smiled and withdrew her sheathed blade, holding it like a dirty stocking. "We've got a few small weapons on us that we had just in case robbers came by or anything, but that's it."

Nalt revealed the axe on his back and Wella her hammer. Bafan carried nothing as he had earlier said he didn't even want to risk it and Mastohlt looked utterly harmless from all outward appearances. The guard tilted his head back and forth and then shrugged.

"Alright, I can't see the harm. I'll sign you in over at the gatehouse and then you should go to the city square. Couple of inns there to dry off and then you can start findin' some work," he motioned toward the city. "Come on, then."

Once they were inside the city, it wasn't much of a mystery where the enchanted armor was being made. To the southeast, after rows of tidy white plaster and blue clay shingled buildings, rose a towering set of black chimneys spewing acrid black smoke that blew out to the sea.

"At least we know where that is now," Grenna said as they continued down the central avenue toward the square at the city's center. "Nalt, you and I will scope that out."

"I definitely sense Auras being used there," Mastohlt said. "A lot of them. Don't be surprised if there are a couple dozen or more mages there."

"Do shut up about that at the moment," Grenna said through a smile, tilting her head at the fairly steady traffic of people and carts around them. None of Sicahn's citizens seemed particularly interested in their conversation, but Nalt agreed with Grenna's caution. "When it's a better time, we'll talk."

When they reached the square, which was centered around a large statue of an anchor and some locally famous sailor, Grenna and Nalt went toward the southeast and the forges while the others made for the smallest of the three inns, located on the square's west side bracketed by two banks of merchant stalls.

Harbor air was never especially good, reeking of fish and the worst stenches from the sea, but as they neared the forges it got far more odious. A putrid smell, like rotting eggs, emanated from it. Grenna took to covering her nose with a cloth, but Nalt just breathed it in, gagging as he did.

Once they passed through the winding and narrow streets of that quarter of the city, they came to a more open plaza where a massive white brick building housing the forges stood before them to the north, its tall black chimneys reaching into the sky. Around the building were what must have been at least sixty men, all with the usual trappings of Methrangian infantry. There were a handful of ordinary businesses on the street nearer to Grenna and Nalt, specifically a potion dealer and tailor, but otherwise it felt like they had wandered into an entirely different city.

"Well, what do you think?" Grenna muttered to Nalt, her head turning toward him and her eyebrows raised high.

Just at that moment, the rains started again, pelting them both on the heads. As if to mock them, the icy chunks rattled hideously off the armor of the troops, making it even harder to deny to presence of the force they faced.

Nalt sighed as he thought of what this mission would entail. Mastohlt's caution that there might be a large number of mages further worried him. He tried picturing charging at even more than a couple of the robed bastards. That would be the end of him in a hurry and he wasn't afraid to admit that.

This new mission was a cursed thing.

"I think... I could use a drink."