It went badly.

We’re alive, obviously. Well, Raufa’s in bad shape but I’m sure she’ll be right as rain in a day or so, minus a finger or two. Anywho, lots to write about.

Fort Cairan was the nearest outpost to our goal, an old Truestone affair the Druids had altered into an unpopular sky port. The odd chunk of druid-piloted earth took off into the sky for planets unconquered, far more than expected. Enkili don’t need any help, Moketta have those phallic fire launchers to ride around on, so it could only be freight, tourism or the Twenty. Didn’t make much sense. Trading with the Moketta was good and fine - those little exoskeletal rats make a neat boiler - but not to a nowhere port like Fort Cairan. Most decent tech went through Vo, where prices were centralized and competition organized neatly into a sensible pantheon of oligarchies. Shipping it elsewhere might be smart in one sense - another location from which to sell, cut transportation overheads, diversification of client. Yes, that was probably it, some smart whippersnapper cleverly undercutting the market on some insect contraption.

Economics aside, our actual target lay a little bumpy trek into the neighboring foothills. These were not the idyllic, flower strewn, flowing hills that could be compared to cleavage from the Daedrus Plains, nor the soft, mesmerizing, rump-resembling dunes of the Gifted Sands. These hills were sharp and sheer, furred in that dark, thick, annoyingly tall sort of grass that only a Druid could tolerate, with barely a tree to obfuscate the stuff. Hardly arousing at all. Though that did make locating signs of a Dragon quite the easy lark, what with broad batches of land handily culled by the hunting beasts flames, or that still smoldering goats skull we found against the backdrop of a mightily scorched cliff face.

"Did the Dragon do that?" Henrique, mustering all his airheaded talent, managed to ask upon seeing it.

"Yes, Henrique," I said, giving his cheek a gentle clapping as I passed him by. "Yes it did. You're getting it."

A little ways northward, as the sea began its creep into the horizon with the hills turning to face it, we spotted a decent collection of crags and passages in the more rocky hills, the sort of nooks and crannies a Dragon would enjoy roosting in. I called for a stop, set up camp somewhat out of sight - There’s no hiding from a Dragon, but no reason to present ourselves either - and set good old dependable Henrique to watch for the rest of the day, up in a tree with a good view. The crew set about making the place hospitable while I milked the headache I hadn’t had for hours to sit out the work, smoking and watching the clouds go by.

That peace lasted ten minutes. Madeline decided to set up shop right beside me, her portable table awkwardly hauled the long distance, and without invitation began her spiel.

“Right pile of shit you’ve gotten us in here, Oskar sir,” She said, before snapping and yelling at May. “No, No! Park Raufa further back!” She returned to her unpacking her tools onto her unfolded workbench.

I eyed a shaded space across the slowly unwinding camp, suddenly looking very welcoming. But no, I’d begged to be left where I was. Madeline’s pause was coming to an end, so to save myself from having to respond I took a long, slow drag. I outstretched my legs, folded them over, feet resting on an open corner of her work bench.

“Made a right twat of yourself, getting all brainwashed like that,” she said, delicately placing her array of tools and instruments. “Now poor Pritchards left as is, and we got Enkili on our back. Your fault, that.”

“Stefan’s fault, you mean,” I said, the narrowed smoke billowing as I spoke. “Let me get brainwashed, let me act like a... An idiot. That… Those Enkili are the reason I’m not as stupid as Pritchard is right now. And did I not ask to be left to rest?”

“Look pretty restful right now, legs on my table, arse half way out the chair. Doing a fine job of resting, Mister Oskar.”

“Madeline, is there something I can help you with?”

“Yeah, you can pay me, like you said you would.”

“I will pay you - all of you - as soon as this deal with good Mister Me comes through, like I said.”

“You didn’t say anything about this ‘You’ guy to us, actually. May told us, and we’ve not heard a word about it since.” Having emptied her toolbag, she moved away to her wagon, grabbed a set of lengthy brass tubes and hauled them over to the table. A bit of spit on her hands, her sleeves well rolled up, she took out some sort of wrench and worked on the bolts holding the segmented pieces together.

“Not a word,” she continued. “Just, go here. Do this. Don’t ask. Clean shit. Pack. Unpack. No money for it - or not yet, so you say. And now on short notice with nary a spot of rest I’m meant to get all of Stefan’s distilling shit spic, span and ready to go by days end. Didn’t even get those replacement parts I told you I needed from Vo.”

“What replacement parts?” I asked, feeling more than a little attacked. “I don’t remember anything about that.”

“I handed you a list, Oskar, one night when you were writing in that dainty little book. You said ‘Ahuh, yeah, of course, I’ll get on that’ like you always do, shoved it away at the back. Not a word about it since.”

I don’t recall being handed a list but, having just checked, indeed there it was, slipped in the back of this very book. Nevertheless, I can hardly be faulted for forgetting, what with the stress and extenuating circumstances and so forth. All of which also excuses the lie I told in response.

“Well, of course I don’t remember the list because I have a headache, Madeline!” I said, lurching upwards in my chair with grand, annoyed gestures. “Shouldn’t you be getting a meal ready? It’s late, and we’re all overworked.”

“Yeah, well, I’m busy.” One span of tube undone, she eyed down the piece, blew through, grabbed a rag and started cleaning the inside. “Gotta clean all this and get it back together before you all get back with that piss. Raufa’s gonna cook.”

“She-! You-! What? Raufa? I mean I…” I paused for a moment. I had no idea what sort of cooking skills Raufa may or may not have. To my knowledge she ate whatever was in front of her with the usual dead-eyed aplomb with which she meandered through every other of life's necessities.

“Yes, Raufa,” Madeline said. “And that’s another thing I’m not keen on, Oskar. You act like cooking is my job. It’s not my job. Fixing Stefan’s equipment is my job. I cook because I like to. So that means, Oskar.” Here she put down the tube and leaned over me a bit. “If I don’t feel like cooking, I ain’t gonna cook, and you can’t say a word about it!”

My head started hurting for real.

“I- Why is this going on now?”

“Because you’ve been an annoying brat lately and frankly I’m getting tired of it.”

“Yes, but-!” I paused. By now the entire camp had stopped working and started gawking at the two of us , bickering. Not acceptable. I stood.

“Now listen here all of you! My being a brat is part of the deal if I want it to be. By this time tomorrow we’ll be swimming in gold! Or at least Raufa and I will be, figuratively speaking. Honestly, everyone, this is the last stretch. If you could just hang on a few more days things’ll all be spick and span, okay? Except that’s not actually a question because if you say no you’re fired and you can get home on your own.”

“Oskar.”

“What?” I spun, found Stefan’s stupid mask in my face. “What, Stefan?”

“Have you thought about how you’re going to extract without any contracts?”

“No, I have not.” I glanced about at the ogling fools, Madeline’s pouting lips as she cleaned her next tube with vigor and fury. I put a hand to my head. “Oh gee golly gosh my headache is gone I guess I’d better get busy with that. Raufa! I need you.”

“She’s cooking!” Madeline fixed me with a firm look.

“Not anymore. Get someone else on it. Pritchard’s not doing much, I imagine. He’ll do a fine job, I’m sure.”

“But I hate cooking!” Pritchard yelled from across the camp, his head poking out from behind a wagon. “I… I hate fire!”

“All the more reason Miss Alexandria will be impressed by the effort!”

“Oh.” His teeth clenched worriedly. “Oh, I suppose so. Alright.”

“Sorted.”

“You really shouldn’t do that, Mister Oskar!” Madeline said. “That’s cruel.”

“Yeah, Oskar, that’s actually kinda fucked up,” May, who had been dawdling on the sides finally added. “That’s like brainwashing him all over again. It’s immoral. Think about how it made you feel.”

Henrique even nodded to that. Ironic, since he’d been the one to lord it over me on that very first day. A crew of judgemental eyes, hands-on-hips, disapproving glares.

“Well, you see the problem, ultimately, is that I really don’t care what any of you think in the slightest. And now I’m also busy, so if you’d all please do your jobs. And, again, that’s not really a request.”

. I grabbed my chair, hauled it to Stefan’s wagon and set it down outside. Grandfather had already turned a fiery orange, the harsh strands of his last lights throwing out stretched shadows of the grass and trees. Stefan joined me - standing, of course - and a few moments later Raufa appeared and lounged on the wagon's step, staring out at the camp at work.

“This is the sort of thing you ought to be writing about in that book, Oskar,” Stefan said, folding his arms as he matched Raufa’s dead gaze at the camp. “This Pritchard situation, reflecting on it and your actions around it, questioning your decisions, analyzing, contemplating. Not just… Recounting everything.”

A decidedly uninteresting idea. I glanced up at him, at Raufa, these two inexpressive dead-eyed, soulless monsters I’d surrounded myself with. Absurd, really, when you think about it. I’m the most human and moral of the lot!. I looked at Stefan, gave a great big smile until he turned and looked. Then to Raufa, and frowned deep and long, until she looked too.

“What the hell are you doing?” Stefan asked.

“Oh I just thought that, since neither of you have functioning faces, I ought to emote for the three of us.” I cracked into a comedic frown, then a cringe, then something else, I’m not sure what.. “You ought to try it sometime. It’s great.”

“You’re trying to sidestep the topic.”

“Actually I think you’ll find the topic has been successfully sidestepped.”

“You’re a child.” His gaze returned to the camp. “Raufa agrees, even if she’ll never admit it.”

“Raufa never agrees or disagrees with anything. It’s my favorite thing about her.”

Raufa, however, had not returned to looking at the camp. Those had laid like the hand of death surely on me. Despite her rocky exterior, fiery half-cast by our progenitor, she could out-stare any mask Stefan might wear. Her eyes were unusually… Wild? It was uncomfortable to see her staring at me like that, like there might actually be a real solid human being behind there thinking things at me, about me.. Terrifying. And extendedly awkward, only passed by an unsuppressable shiver that allowed me to disengage.

What the fuck shit was that about? That’s roughly what I thought in the silence that continued, eyeing the ground until she, at last, looked away again. Something about it had more of an effect than all the pseudo-moral judgements of the other lackeys.

“The extraction was your invention,” Stefan said at last, almost a full minute after my moment with Raufa. “How do you usually do it? What Contracts are we missing?”

“Well…” I sat forward, leaning over my knees to stare at the ground. Eager to be on with a new topic. “Local flowers are the best for covering our scent, so Raufa can make one of those tea, essence things. Quite good at that, she is. It’s going to take two of us, so we’ll need plenty. The equipment for carrying containers, the extra straps for stealth and such. Most of the issue is getting close, undetected.” I gestured at Raufa. “She had a druid contract on her feet, shifted the ground to make her steps silent. A Lightbearer one, made a quick flash elsewhere to distract the Dragon if need be. Another to distort light around her. Another for after the fact, to give light to collect by. A few others for emergencies, escapes and whatnot.”

“But the first time, Oskar,” Stefan said. “How did you do it the first time?”

“Not up for discussion.”

“It was an accident.” Raufa’s eyes remained honed on the working crew, the setting sun, its reflection giving a fiery light to her dead gaze. “It was attacking us. He won’t talk about it.”

“Well of course I’ll talk about it!” I said. “Like she said, we were attacked, we tried fighting it off, found the… You know, the method. Scared it right off. Done. Talked about.”

I glared furiously at the ground before me. My chest tightened, I could feel my pulse in my temples. Wasn’t about to say more, if I even could’ve.

Stefan nodded, adjusted his mask a bit. “Of course. Either way, you’re saying you’ve never actually pulled this off, in its entirety, without a solid backing of contracts?”

“Not technically, no. But I’m sure we’ll be fine! Raufa’s a master at this stuff by now. I have full faith in her.”

“Not good enough. There are holes in this plan we need to plug. For example, the Cairan Foothills are home to few species of flower, and what wildlife lives here is monitored by the local Druids. We need something else to cover your scents. Ideas?”

“I’d always thought mud would work just as well,” I said. “Only problem being it’d need to be soaking wet, or it’d flake on the way in. But also not too much that you’d be dripping globs. Those lizards have fierce hearing.”

“Mud. This is a craggy region, but I’m sure we’ll find at least enough for the job. Fine. What about stealth?” He turned to Raufa. “Can you get close without making a sound?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Sound isn’t the issue, really,” I said, since Raufa never felt the need to explain her grunted utterances. “She’s quiet, which is why she’s good for it. Crawls forward real slow, inch at a time. But it's a Dragon. Whole room might as well be in daylight for that thing. It’ll spot her no matter how quiet she is.” I paused and realized I’d been criticizing my own plan. “Not that that can’t be solved, of course!”

“And you have a solution?” Stefan asked.

“Not yet, no…”

“Well you have until we spot the Dragon. Figure it out. Any other problems? Can she… Apply the method, without contracts?”

“Of course she can. Those muscles aren’t just for show, you know!” I leaned over and slapped her bicep. Pretty sure she hates that, but one can never be sure with an expressionless, walking slab of rock like her. “Blood pistons, they are. Not a worry.”

“Ahuh.” Stefan’s gloved fingers ran the edge of his faux chin, considering the sky for a moment. “You know, of course, I could be of aid. I have some few contracts, and some… skills of my own. Why don’t I-”

“Ah-No.” I waved him off.. “Stefan, lovely as I find you, fascinating as your rantings about the world are, we both know there’s one key to this partnership, and that’s that we both know something the other doesn’t.”

“You imagine I would betray you simply because I’ve learned your method?”

“Who, you? The psychopathic alchemist master who idolizes the greatest, mass murdering terrorist this solar system has ever seen? After all the talk of murdering anyone that gets in our way, burning these fine worlds to the ground, even if it means leaving nothing left in the end? Why would I think that?”

“Very fair,” he said, with a vague gesture. “Well, tell me then honestly. Do you think this will come through? We’ll make it through tomorrow with our bounty in hand?”

“I do. A fine crew we have here.” I gazed across the camp, now slowing down as the list of tasks shrinked, the skies grew dark and spotted with brilliant gems. “I know that in the end we’ll all pull together.” Madeline had made shocking progress in her cleaning, a neat stack of twenty or more brilliantly shining brass, bronze or copper components piled on one end of her table. Pritchard bent over a slew of papers, one hand stirring a pot while squinting, bespectacled, at whatever nonsense statistics he had to work on. May, feeding the horses.

Henrique, however, was doing nothing of use as always. Ass on the ground he opened one hand, facing out, and a splashing of green blades sprouted taller. The other hand opened, the blades disappeared in a shading of black. Open one, growth, open the other, shadow, like a cat making magic biscuits.

“Yes indeed,” I said, staring at the simple beauty of the boy's small minded enjoyment. “I think, indeed, when all is said and done we’ll reconvene tomorrow night on this very spot, toast to a job well done, and Oh fuck.”

Henrique opened one hand. Grass grew. The other. Shadows sprawled. Cantrips, cheap little toys. Free to use, about as much as he liked.

“Oskar?” Stefan asked, leaning forward, following my gaze. “Is something wrong, or is this another of your bizarre economic issues? I’ve no patience for-”

“No, no,” I waved him off, standing. “I’ve figured out that whole ‘being spotted’ issue. Fuck me, but I’ve solved it.” I trundled over to Henrique, a deep pit in my stomach.