While the beer is still spitting from my nose, my spidey-sense goes off. Well, not exactly my spidey-sense, but you get the gist.

I wouldn’t be scared of these three under normal conditions. But I can’t afford to reveal my identity – and conjuring a shield made of [Light] would be a big giveaway now, wouldn’t it? Also, dispelling the spell will be harder because the guy is clearly activating his ring.

What I can do, however, is to answer tit-for-tat.

[Single-Minded Focus]

The world around me slows down, and I breathe deeply.

[Advanced Light Shaping]

[Restructuring Conditions Met: Advanced Light Lance → Advanced Flame Lance]

I improved the conversion efficiency, and, thankfully, both spells are advanced now. A bolt is coming from the ring, but my spell is equally fast. In an instant, the two magical projectiles meet mid-air, exploding in the center of the inn. I have summoned a flash-shield of invisible [Light] to avoid being blasted by the shockwave, but I can’t say the same for the three Fellows.

To my surprise, though, they simply fall on their butts, frowning in my direction.

“Where I come from,” I say, still standing, “the Fellowship of the Ring a funny name. There’s a story about some short people and Humans forming a fellowship around one ring. That’s why I laughed. If you have any more problems with that, just tell me. Otherwise, I’m here for business as much as you are.”

I take a seat at my table as if nothing has happened, the one patron currently resting his butt on a chair. I look at Breakstone’s cigar, left abandoned beside me; after pondering for a second, I go for the cool look. I pick up the smoking thing and suck some smoke into my mouth. In an instant, my eyes begin watering profusely, and even though I have not inhaled it, I start coughing, almost retching.

“Disgusting! Cough! Cough! Jesus Almighty, who the hell smokes this shit?!”

“Should we kill him?” the shortest of the three asks.

“His level might be higher than ours. I’m not getting a read on him. Don’t be fooled,” that’s the leader at the front, the man who just shot a deadly bolt at me.

“So?” the shorter Fellow asks.

“So, we do business, as per usual.”

The leader walks to my table and sits where Breakstone had been until a moment ago. Calm like a pond, he takes the cigar from my hand and stomps on it. Then, he fishes out for two good-smelling and beautifully wrapped cigars and offers me one.

“So, kid, are you here for business? I’m Murray. Nice to meet you.”

…

“So, Chandler,” Murray tells me, “What is your business here?”

His two associates are not sitting with us. They headed toward the room in the back, probably conducting some shady business of their own.

“Information. I’m looking to buy for past and future.”

“The Fellows provide,” he says with a nod.

Is that a ‘yes, we do that?’ Will he be offended, if I ask?

“I need someone to give me a list of all the secret classes.”

“Just so we are on the same page, you are talking about the academy, right, kid?”

I take another puff from the good cigar and nod.

“What else would I be talking about?” I smile.

“Classes like the one you are hiding so well. But I doubt we would sell that list to someone we didn’t know yet. Are you new?”

“New to crime, you mean?”

He raises an eyebrow as if the question was too obvious to be answered.

“I’d wager that my head is more valuable than yours. But I’m relatively new to this scene. Is that good enough?”

“As long as you have the gold, kid, it’s all good with me.”

“Why does everyone call me ‘kid’ here?”

“You have no scars, kid. No tattoos. In this business, that’s a dead giveaway.”

Murray looks around, searching the crowd. He licks his front teeth as some sort of a tic.

“Two large ones for the information on your secret classes. We have a record of the confirmed ones, the suspected ones, and even those likely to still be on from past years.”

“You want two thousand golds? Isn’t that a bit much?”

Murray looks at me like I’m an idiot.

“Two hundred golds, kid. Not thousand. And it’s non-negotiable.”

Huh.

“Do the—” I take a sharp breath to avoid laughing, “Fellows have a known hideout in this city?”

“The Poisoned Snake, why?”

I take out two bags of money containing a hundred gold coins each.

“If the information is not good enough, Murray, you’ll know.”

The not-so-veiled threat doesn’t seem to faze the man – he simply takes the bags of money without even looking at them. He directly places them in his bag of holding. Then, one of the other two Fellows comes out from the back and whispers something in Murray’s ear.

“Well, Gioeius, we’ll deliver the information right to your house.”

“Oh, that’s nice. But please, keep up the Chandler. I’d like my identity not to be revealed to my fellow students. It’s better if Chandler is my business name.”

They look at me blankly for a second.

“What? Do you think I’m afraid of you coming to my place? Hell, I’d be surprised if you made it to my room in one piece. But if you want to try, send you very best Fellows.”

“Murray, shouldn’t we teach him a lesson?” the shorter Elf snarls.

“With so much bravado, he could be an [Archmage]’s son or a royal. As long as he pays and shows proper respect, we’ll just continue our business, Yelsie.”

Yelsie?

What?

And where does ‘Murray’ come from?

“Another thing, when are you going to do the delivery? I need it quite soon. Also, I need someone to gather all available information on some people. Do you offer such a service?”

“The Fellows provide,” they both say with a nod.

Creepy, but ok.

“Can I have an address or something? I already have a list of names,” I say, taking out a piece of paper, “but I’ll probably need even more than that. And a general report on every student of the academy would be nice too. Nothing too in-depth, save for the ones I specifically wrote down for you. How much for such a thing?”

Again with the ‘is this guy an idiot?’ look.

“You want a list of every damn student and their background?” Yelsie laughs. “Not even the academy has something like that. It would take almost all the Fellows who are not currently on the job to produce such a list.”

“How much?” I smile widely and add my signature wink.

“Kid, are you sure you want to hire the Fellows for this job? I can give you the list of classes because we sometimes do business with [Mages] from the academy that are connected. Here, you are talking about—”

“How much?” I repeat.

Murray and Yelsie exchange a bewildered look.

“Kid, a job this big will leak. It would work better if there were someone specific that you were looking for. The big players in the academy will notice the buzz. You might even alert an [Archmage]. You are talking about hundreds of general reports. Hell, maybe even a thousand. We would have to hire a flat-eared [Secretary] just to catalog them for you!”

“Well, I like to know who I’m getting in business with. I’d also like a report on the most known criminal groups in the city. Oh, a couple of history books, and—whatever. Listen, I have a list of things I need.”

I take out a neat stack of papers from my bag of holding and give it to them.

“Here, you will find the names of the people on whom I need in-depth research. There’s also more general stuff like the nicest restaurants in town, the biggest businesses, major criminal players, and some reports on [Archmages] and their cliques. Everyone seems pretty scared of you. You must know your stuff.”

“Kid, you better not be messing with me. Some of this is trivial work. The rest? There’s information that could have you killed just for knowing.”

I know that parts of my MO are not subtle or smart, but I’m quite sleep-deprived, and I need to know more about this place. If I were to blow my cover somehow – and I can assure you that it’s very unlikely – I would just change my identity. I have Valarith’s protection. Even if I came out of hiding, no one could really touch me. The [Archmages] themselves would steer clear of me, no doubt.

“It’s not ‘kid,’ it’s Chandler. And if you could give me a price for all of this, we would probably—”

“A hundred large,” Murray says with a straight face. “And the price could get steeper if some of these jobs became more dangerous than initially accounted for. We will have to mobilize every Fellow, Chandler. And some of them might like you a bit too much if you know what I’m saying.”

I look at the table with a frown.

“Come on, Murray, let’s go. We have real business to take care of,” Yelsie says.

“Follow me,” I say while getting up.

I scan the place for a sturdy table and see a thick, circular one on the other side of the inn.

“Hello, fuck off,” I tell the people sitting there. Thankfully, the two scary Fellows behind me seem to do the job, and everyone instantly vacates their seats.

I start pulling out bags of coins one after another, so many that my arm starts getting stiff, and I have to alternate between the two to avoid getting cramps.

“Wait, Murray. Aren’t those bags marked with the Royal Sigil?”

I look at the weird insignia on the bag and huff.

“Huh, that’s true.”

I keep shoveling out more bags. At least the Royal Treasury had the decency to organize the small ones. My bag of holding is courtesy of Valarith and can contain a lot of stuff. But I still had to leave most of the gold I had robbed from the palace in Valarith’s hands. It was simply too much.

After a few minutes and with me panting, there’s so much gold on the table now that the fellows are speaking into some custom artifacts.

“Yes, yes. I know. Get them here, now,” Murray is speaking fast. “An idiot just took out a hundred large in front of—yes, yes. Now. The bags are marked. No, no. I can’t feel any trackers. Yes, I’ve used it already. Come here as fast as possible.”

It doesn’t take long before more than a dozen Fellows come to the inn and push the current customers out. See, when you have so much cash out in the open, even the weakest criminal gets ideas.

As soon as even the half-giant manning the counter is out, a huge—is that an Ahali? I guess. Well, a huge Ahali approaches. It’s a male, and he’s built like a damn gorilla. Taller than the tallest Elf by at least a foot. He’s as big as the half-giant and probably twice the weight.

“Murray,” the Ahali nods to the Elf. “What’s the job?”

“This is our employer,” Murray nods at me.

“Yo,” I wink at the Ahali. I notice some scaled patches on his otherwise very furry arms.

“The Fellows provide,” the huge Ahali says with a nod.

“The Fellows provide,” the others chorus.

“Great. Now, as I was saying, this is mostly an information-gathering job. Please, don’t whack anyone if it’s not strictly necessary—especially not the students. If you have to whack other criminals, be my guest. If it is more expensive than previously forecasted, just tell me. If you think you can rob me, it will force me to be very, very mean. And I’d rather not reveal everything about me.”