Violin-like instruments played out a duet symphony, The sounds bounced off the walls making the two players sound more like an orchestra. Shurta held her hands on the wolf girl’s waist, They swayed back and forth gently to the music, a silence between the two as they stared into each other’s eyes.

“I still don’t think I’m a very good dan-” She was trying to ‘politely’ pull away from the girl using civility but was cut short mid sentence.

“Shh shh.” Shurta put a finger up to the wolf woman’s lips. “Don’t say anything.”

The violin duo looked at the two females dancing, they looked at each other and nodded, their graceful piece began to fade, going quiet until it was just barely audible. The violinist on the left stopped playing entirely and let the remaining one play out the rest of the softening notes.

Rhenixa felt pretty nervous, she worried that her inability to do something as simple as dancing could blow their cover, especially since the standing order was not to stand out, which by the looks of the starry-eyed guests she failed entirely on several accounts. The two swayed gently in place, slowly rotating. In the corner of her eye she was able to spot Anaya and her pretend date who’s name she already had forgotten. Anaya’s face told several emotions, she was definitely confused at how she even managed to get into this situation, she was also worried. Rhenixa blinked twice and rapidly looked around the room. This meant either to go around looking for leads about the MO, to her misfortune she had no idea she was currently up close with the target. Or it meant that she was currently unsure what to do, It was more than likely that she had no idea what to do.

Anaya took the latter meaning, she disappeared into the crowd asking questions and showing off her charismatic skills.

The resting violinist picked his instrument back up, there was a pause allowing the other to finish the last notes of the high class song. As the last note fell he began to only use the higher sounding strings to produce a form of tensity. The other picked up what the other had been playing out, they joined the high note bowing. They both quickened the pace. The girls also moved accordingly to the music. One of the violinists started to stomp their foot on the ground throwing down a bass that echoed through the room, the crowd mimicked the new beat clapping their hands or stomping their feet. The song was an iconic Ithori folk song. Finding an Ithori who didn’t like the song was scarce.

Shurta took the lead, She intertwined their fingers and pulled one arm behind her, pulling Rhen closer. She backed away releasing one of her hands, Rhenixa saw where this was going She rolled herself back towards Shurta, The distance that was closed between them left Rhenixa’s plump butt facing the woman. The two swayed together in this backward embracement for a moment.

Shurta raised Rhenixa’s arm high above them, Rhenixa did a tiny spin allowing her to face the Ithori. They stayed in a close proximity of each other, looking into each other eyes, They began to lean backward, Rhen placed her leg above Shurta’s thigh. The song ended and the everyone cheered. For a moment two were bathing in the spotlight, a slight amount of sweat beaded off their foreheads, their breathing was also heavy due to their performance.

Shurta turned towards Rhenixa. “You weren't as bad as you were trying to say.” This caused Rhenixa to look away and blush. She thoroughly enjoyed herself dancing with a person and for a crowd.

“I never asked for your name. Could you tell me it?” Shurta gave a seductive smile.

“Oh...uh.” Rhenixa probably could have used her normal name but this was a stealth mission where everything hinged on being a ghost making a fake name would have been on the safer side. “It’s… Perxa” Hopefully she didn’t follow Caloricean news, as that was the name of the woman who was recently found dead from a murder-suicide.

“Perxa, huh? Cute.” Shurta started getting closer to her, entirely bypassing her personal bubble. Then an arm went around Rhenixa’s shoulders, the owner was none other than Anaya. Her breasts squeezed against Rhenixa’s shoulder.

“Hey, Sis. Mind if I have a word with yah?” She looked forward and gave a wink to Shurta.

“Oh this is your sister?” Shurta was the one to speak first, “By all means, go ahead. I’ll be right over there.” She pointed to a table with a series of colorful refreshments.

Anaya gave her a toothy smile and pulled Rhenixa just a little ways away. Her false expression turned to seriousness. “That person is Shurta Krahvi.”

Rhenixa’s eyes widened. “Are you serious!?” She brushed a stray hair to the side and sighed. “Why does everything always get more complicated? She looked around once more. “Where’s the other guy?”

“He said he was going to go contact the others about the recent details.”

“Oh…So the mission is over?”

“Not until he comes back with further orders.”

Explosions erupted from several locations around the room. Several guests that were relatively close were thrown to opposite ends the others that were too close to the danger zone weren't so lucky, some lost limbs that flew everywhere or died. The smoke rose to the ceiling destroying the visibility of the glass roof and the artificial lights on the inside. The glass rained downward as blaster fire raced to the floor. Several armed Ithori rebels repelled downward onto the floor from overhead ships.

Guards rushed inward to protect the guests and return fire. The ballroom became a war zone. The higher ranked VIPs were escorted out of the room. Rebels tried to cut them off by rushing through the docking ports.

Rhenxia and Anaya had dropped to the ground covering their heads to try to shield their faces from the incoming debris and gunfire.

Anaya was the first to stand, in the confusion she shot at both rebel and republic, no one could really tell who was shooting who in the smoke, fire and raining glass.

“Get up!” Anaya yelled at Rhenixa who complied without hesitation. “Start running to the landing pad!”

Rhenixa nodded and ran off, Anaya stayed for a little longer, she fired her small pistol, the laser found itself cutting through the open faced helmet of a republic guard. She killed a few others then stomped off to the docking bays. She was pissed and wanted to answers and who else better to yell at than the employers themselves.

~^~

Gabe moved his fingers, He was amazed that it only took three hours. ‘Amazed’ wasn't exactly the right word to describe. It was a coalition of emotions, relieved that he could move again, angry that he spent the totality of three hours lying on a bed without any more of entertainment. He slid off the bed, he attempted to stand on his weak legs, they held but he wouldn’t try jumping or running for a few more hours. He left the tent, He held an arm above his head to protect his eyes. The sun was still very high in the sky, must’ve been about midday. He glanced around once his eyes fully adjusted to the light.

“Whoa.” The place was nearly a ghost town, when Zara said that she was going to hunt, it must a tribe-wide activity if it left the place like this. Since there was almost no one here he decided now would be a good enough time to get acquainted with the layout.

The tribe center had been more or less the area for duels and feasts, not much actually been around it, in fact they left the old chieftain’s body still in the center. It’ll probably be dealt with later on. He wandered around in the place, not much was offered in the tiny tribal village, a few places that seemed to be shops, which he decided to stop by at a peculiar looking one. There was bits of machinery either hanging from the overhanging ceiling or laid out on a workbench. At first there didn’t look like anyone was around so he went inside, peeling the tent flaps to the side. The first thing he saw was a old Cartollian male. He remained motionless in a chair, as Gabe got closer to the seemingly dead reptile man he noticed he had been missing a leg, no doubt the reason he remained here. He also saw that his scales weren’t a deep tan like the majority of the race, he looked pale, sickly even. He crept over to the side of the motionless crippled lizard.

“Hello?” Gabe said in a slightly hushed voice.

The old Cartollian rocketed awake. He made growls and hisses he swung a club like blade wildly around the confined space. One of the random arcs began to fly towards Gabe, He put his arms up to protect his more fragile face. But a familiar scene played out, he was standing further away from the old man.

“Whaaaaaaa?” This was definitely going into the ‘to learn about’ list of items in Gabe’s inquiry book. This time Gabe decided to hang back.

“Hey old man!” He yelled from across the room.

The old Cartollian did the same movements of hissing and thrashing around, he eventually calmed down and looked at Gabe, One of the old man’s eyes was greyed out, he must’ve been blind there.

He snorted before he began to talk. “Who you!” His Caloricean must have not been that well, Gabe was entirely used to hearing only Zara talk. He must not have met many of the wolf people as she had.

“I’m Gabe, the new chieftain!”

“New chief? Baah.” He spits onto the ground. “Weakling like you?” He turned around in the swiveling chair and tugged on some kind of welder that was hanging above his head.

“Yeah, I killed Zara’s father….If you want I can show you the body.”

“Nah, I believe. Why you here?” Sparks began to fly from in front of him.

Gabe got closer to the Cartollian. “Just looking around.” From what Gabe could see the man was wielding pieces of metal to a metallic frame of a plantigrade leg. Seeing this Gabe got an idea, “You like to build.”

The man stopped working and sneered at him. “I create!”

“Yeah? What some rare materials?”

The expression changed. “I’m listening.”

“I’ll give you the items, but you have to bu-create something for me with them, deal?”

He looked like he was going to deny, but in this situation, there really wasn’t a reason to not go for it. “Deal.”