"Bureau of detainment, bureau of civil protection, bureau of… Ah, there it is, information…" Rorik muttered to himself as his eyes scanned the signs lining the grey walls. The Warden's Guild in Listone was much like every other one he'd visited, a squat, sprawling grey building with an overabundance of signs and organisation. You could be brain dead and find your way around the building, for those who couldn’t read there were coloured lines on the floor leading to the different departments. Many would think the guild which managed the enforcers, prisons and courts would be a scary place, but nope. Just a bunch of bureaucrats.

Rorik's boots carried him through the maze of hallways past flocks of meek office workers, following the breadcrumb trail of signs that made him so thankful he learned to read. There were lines, sure, but whichever cruel low-wage worker that had been ordered to paint them had a sick sense of humour. You’d be practically running a marathon round the halls of the facility following them; in some places the same line would cross over itself as it took you back the way you’d already gone. This place would be unnavigable if you couldn't read.

Or more to the point, it would be navigable, but would just take you hours to get anywhere.

People cast him odd looks, his concealing attire a stark contrast to the sensible clothes of those who worked in the corporate facility. He didn’t care, he’d be gone by the time anyone reported him to security and they went looking for him.

Eventually, he found the room he looked for. Room 34 in the Bureau of Information. He knocked once before allowing himself into the dusty office.

The small office was crowded with a large desk, filing cabinets, bookshelves and small tables piled high with documents. With a snort, the muscular redheaded woman who sat at the wooden desk awoke, body twitching out of sleep as the door shut heavily behind him. She flailed slightly as she was awakened, sending a small pile of papers spiraling to the ground in a raspy tumble.

Slowly, after blinking her blue eyes a dozen times and finally lifting her head upright, her dazed eyes settled on Rorik, focused, then widened.

"Rorik? What in the hells are you doing here?" She bluntly asked. The hunter chuckled.

"Hey Fira. Thought you were sick of paperwork?" He replied amiably, removing his hat and cowl in front of someone for the first time in a long time. His mid-length dark hair framed his face as he sat, hair he'd almost forgotten existed. He should probably get it cut, it was more efficient to keep it short. Then again, he almost liked it like this. It was just a shame that in his line of work you could never reveal your face to people.

"Ugh, that fat troll Torra got the promotion. Imagine her as an actual enforcer! I'd be surprised if she ever sees combat before her legs give out from the weight." She scoffed, repositioning in her comfy chair before looking intensely at her old companion. "Did you break into the building? The door guards should've asked for ID to get in."

"No, they were too preoccupied with the guild's banner being aflame." He spoke casually. His friend frowned for a second as she processed what he meant, then guffawed, grinning as she looked at him incredulously.

"Rorik, surely you didn't!"

"Well of course I didn't, I'd never admit to such a thing in front of a member of the Warden's guild." He winked at her, sitting down casually on the other side of the desk.

"Ah, right, of course." She chuckled, scooping up her scattered papers with one deft hand and splaying them on the desk. "Goddess, it really doesn't feel like I'm a member of the guild. I joined to crack heads, not to crack pencils."

He hummed, knowing full well that it was for the best she wasn't. He'd written a letter to Dorian Carcer himself, begging that they let her into the guild while keeping her away from action. If she fell back into her old tendencies, of the violence they'd shared together in the Streetblades, he knew she'd struggle to get out of it again. Surprisingly, he'd gotten a reply from the nobleman, or at least one of his lackeys, a letter saying that 'In the interest of keeping a potential criminal off the streets, House Carcer concurs that a position in the Warden's guild would indeed benefit Fira Farshine.'

"Speaking of cracking heads, I'm on a job right now." He shifted in his seat. "Can you help me find someone? A girl named Eliza."

His friend squinted at him. "Aren't you the one who owes me a favour?"

"Well, yes. But wouldn't you like me to owe you two favours?"

Fira snorted, rolling her eyes as she reached under her desk and extracted a large blue scrying crystal. This one was connected to a network of others throughout the Warden's guild. Rather than sharing messages directly, they instead shared scrys between them for anyone to look at. The scrys in question were simple images of paperwork, which Fira began swiping through.

She hummed lightly as she began to sort through the information bureau's vast well of knowledge, searching through names starting with an E.

"What's her second name?"

"Vesuvae."

Fira slowly looked up at him, face flat. "And you didn't think to mention that first? Seriously, Rorik? A noble girl? How much are you even getting paid for that?"

"...ten gold." He muttered, avoiding eye contact. She exploded in a wheeze, slamming her desk with one fist while she laughed uproariously. A baffled look fell upon him.

"Rorik, come on. If you're that desperate I can help you out with money."

The hunter sighed, shaking his head. "The job itself doesn't matter any more, I just need to get access to the Vesuvae nobles and assassinate them."

She stared at him for several moments. He glanced back at her and rolled his eyes.

“Which you didn’t hear from me, of course.”

"I'm not even going to ask." She shook her head, finally finding the girl's scrying entry. Within the round flat crystal sat a square image, a document, with the noble girl's information laid out in ordered rows.

"Let's see…" She murmured, eyes scanning the more recent entries. "Huh. Updated recently, apparently her family told the guild to keep and eye out for her. 'Listone guards observed a girl matching the noble's description heading south on Wednesday. Identity is unverified as she had neither an entourage nor the kind of clothes you'd expect from a noble. Guards suspect strongly that it was her due to her eloquent speech and noble attitude. However, other reports claim she was observed to curse like a sailor and scream in frustration when a thief made off with her backpack.'"

The hunter chuckled. "I can believe that. From what her family told me she's probably not as pompous as you'd expect. What's south of here, anyway?"

"Mmm, not much? Mostly woodland and maybe a village or two. Pinemeadow and Rocksdale, I think?"

Rorik hummed. "Gives me somewhere to start at least. Thanks, Fira. I owe you one."

"You owe me two." She laughed.

-

He left the next morning, having spent the night previously drinking and catching up with his old companion. It was a good night, the best he'd had in a while. He promised to come visit her again once he'd finished the job, maybe they could use some of his fortune to go somewhere nice, overseas maybe. He certainly wasn’t romantically interested in her, in fact, he strongly suspected that she wasn’t into men in general, but they had a companionship which was old and familiar. He’d missed having someone he could let his guard down in front of.

Slowly, he made his way south, catching rides with merchants and travellers on horse-pulled carriages. Pinemeadow was a beautiful village, a truly remarkable area full of vibrant flowers and bountiful wildlife. A complete dead end. No trace of the girl. After taking a short while to converse with the amiable villagers and ask for directions, he caught a ride with some hunters making their way to what they called the ‘Old Woods’. He'd hop off along the way and make the short trek to Rocksdale. The bumpy ride wasn’t particularly long, and the hunters were soon bidding him farewell as he set off squelching through the muddy fields.

The landscape was odd. The area must have a tremendous amount of rain frequently, however the landscape was so flat that it didn’t tend to go anywhere. Just sunk into the earth. As a result, dry and solid ground was a luxury. As he considered it further he realised the crops they grew around here must have been aquatic in nature, flourishing in the flooded fields.

After a while of slogging through the mud, it suddenly grew deeper and far more bog-like. Rather than risking his boots and general sanitation by wading through it, he turned and began to circle where he expected Rocksdale to be. Soon enough, he found a narrow walkway which led to and from the village through the fields, a narrow path of lashed together logs the farmers presumably used to navigate the area.

An hour passed. Eventually he arrived, approaching a log wall leading round to an open wooden gate when the sun was at its highest point. Where he first came across the wall, halfway around its perimeter from the gate, there was an odd amount of blood surrounding one section of the fortification near him, red staining the wood and mud below. Perhaps they’d had a bandit attack recently? Or trolls?

When he made his way into the village, though, it was obvious immediately that something was off. Villagers scurried between houses and around corners, throwing him intense looks. He wondered idly if this was what being a leper felt like. He made his way uncontested down the few cobbled paths, villagers making way for him far in advance. In fact, perhaps this was more akin to what being a noble felt like. All he needed was a couple tough guys in armour following him about.

Seeking information, he made his way through the muddy streets to the one man in every village who knew everything. The tavern keeper.

The oak floor protested beneath his boots as he entered the stone building and approached the bar. A hush fell over the room, patrons eying him over their mugs with the same intensity he’d felt earlier. The tavern’s main floor looked exactly as you’d expect, except for a table by one wall which had a series of white robes stacked on it. Was that blood on some of them? Claw marks? Maybe his troll attack theory wasn’t too far off.

Slowly, he approached the wooden counter, peering at the barkeep under his hat's rim. The large man was silent too, staring at him with a clearly forced smile.

"Can I help ya, stranger?" The bearded barkeep eventually spoke, breaking the tense silence which permeated the room.

"A girl named Eliza. Black hair, blue eyes. Know her?" Rorik bluntly spoke, eying the people around the room. He wasn't oblivious. Something was wrong, so it was best to get right to the point.

The large man bristled, leaning forward onto the counter. "You know the girl? You a friend of hers?"

"Something like that. Now look, I-" He was suddenly cut off as his instincts screamed for him to dodge. As his body moved to the side, a cleaver came crashing into the counter where he stood a moment before.

The hunter turned, drawing his blade as he looked around him. All the patrons had stood and now brandished a variety of mismatched knives, clearly intended for cooking and butchery rather than violence. The old man who swung the cleaver from behind him attacked once more, stumbling forward without grace or skill as he tried again. Swiftly, Rorik darted forward, battering the man's blade aside while stabbing his own knife forward into his throat. The old man fell, gurgling, eyes wide as his blood flooded the tavern floor.

“You shouldn’t have come here, sir. This is my town, and we don’t take kindly to consorting with abominations.” A large moustached man spoke cruelly, one finger playing against the tip of his chef knife as he eyed the hunter with seeming disdain from the other end of the tavern floor.

Rorik brandished his curved dagger as the villagers crept towards him from all across the tavern, bloodthirsty grins on their weathered faces as they held their weapons with all the finesse of a one-legged goblin.

Goddamn hillbillies. He'd show them how you really use a knife.

There were a dozen people in the room, all of them armed. With the old man down he had eleven left. Despite the overwhelming numbers, he didn’t feel worried. With the door behind if he needed to escape and the clear ineptitude of the villagers he doubted he’d have any trouble. This would be a slaughter, it was just a shame he wasn’t being paid for it.

Looting the bodies though, now that was always a good reward for such grisly work.

The nearest combatant was an elderly woman with a metal sewing needle. She dove at him with a maddened cackle, the motion far less intimidating than it would be from someone without the slowness of old age. He didn’t bother to hit her, he just sidestepped and allowed her to fall past him, cracking her head against the stone wall behind him.

With a cry of anger, the tavern keeper vaulted the bar with swiftness belying his age. He dashed the short distance between them and swung his meat cleaver in a wide arc, aiming to slit his throat. The bounty hunter ducked, crouching low before uppercutting his knife into the man’s groin. As the man screamed, shuddering and collapsing in a suffering heap, the hunter spared him a sympathetic look. Not a pleasant way to go.

The brutality of the act allowed him a moment of respite as his attackers recoiled in horror, the men especially. Rorik sighed loudly, drawing their attention, striking a casual pose with one hand on his hip as he regarded the crazed villagers. “Please, you’ll need to do better than that. Don’t suppose any of you have calmed down enough to tell me where the girl went? I’ll spare you if you do.”

None of them seemed willing to accept his generous offer. He sighed. Why did he try to be reasonable?

A young girl, a teenager at best, emerged from behind an older woman and sprinted at him with a dinky carving knife.

Now, he was a killer. A hardened one at that. But killing a literal kid?

That was what seperated monsters from men.

However, she was still aiming to stab him, so his non-lethal response would have to be rather brutal still. As she neared, he kept his blade levelled at her. As she got within range he quickly hooked his curved knife around her own, pulling it to the side as he stepped in close. Grabbing her arm, he forced her to drop the knife with a hard squeeze before grabbing her hair and tilting her head back. As her mouth opened, presumably to scream in either pain or anger, he uncapped a vial from his belt and poured it down her throat. The girl blinked, a look of confusion overtaking her before she collapsed limply in his grip. The fast-acting sleep agent was all the more potent in a girl of her size. He scooped her up and placed her on the bar before turning his attention back to the fight.

As he took lives with all the effort of a dragon killing sheep, he pondered their violent intention. They’d asked him if he knew the girl, Eliza. And the mayor, chief, shaman? Whatever, of the village, mentioned consorting with abominations.

Unless they hated the nobility far more than he did he’d say ‘abomination’ was a bit of stretch. What else about the girl could they hate so much?

After striking down several more inept fighters, he turned to the mayor, now left only with two villagers flanking his sides. Rorik stopped his onslaught for a moment to gesture with his now dripping blade at the large mayor. “The girl, Eliza. What about her has inspired so much hostility from you crazy fuckers?”

The man snarled, his eyes flaring with hatred. “The abomination is not human. She and her pet are one and the same, unnatural beings that the Goddess demands we scourge from this holy land.”

He tilted his head slightly, hat still undisturbed on his head. “Stop speaking in riddles and holy gibberish. And what pet are you talking about?"

“The unholy creation! I bet you are just like it under those clothes, no wonder you hide your hideous form from the sun’s divine light!”

Well, no, he just thought it looked cool and helped him remain anonymous. Before he could say anything more, however, the mayor pointed at him and barked a command to his two remaining cronies. Rather than allowing them to charge, Rorik quickly withdrew a small crossbow from within his cloak and fired both rounds, the pre-loaded weapon clicking empty as the miniature bolts flew the short distance and impaled the necks of the cronies. As they fell to the ground, he spread his arms wide and shook his head at the now alone mayor.

“Crazy motherfuckers.” He sighed. “I’ll offer you one last chance, though it no longer extends to mercy. A quick death if you tell me where she went.”

“Hah! So you can go serve you unholy mistress? To bring her the souls you reaped here today? She’s headed for Steelhaven, but you won’t make it there. I’ll kill you and burn your body before hunting down that bitch myself!” The mayor let out a wild laugh of religious fervour as he dashed forward, bringing his knife up to strike a killing blow. Rorik moved, shifting his body left. The mayor fell for the feint and stabbed only empty air as the hunter whirled round his other side and plunged the curved knife into his back. With a heavy thump and cry of pain, the mayor impacted the tavern floor, sliding a short distance. It was already slick with blood, and the liquid pouring from his wound coated the last remaining dry patches to complete the morbid paint job.

Rorik sighed.

Fucking hillbillies.