"Fuck this. I'm not going any further. You said this was going to be easy. This place reeks of blood!" A brown haired Half-Elf said accusatorily to his companion. He'd met him a couple weeks back on a robbery job. He was good at his craft, cracking locks and snatching loot, but his poor attitude and foul mouth grated on anyone unlucky enough to know him.

"Don't be like that Dannis, you know this cunt's loaded! Skulkin' in and outta the gate, buying choice cuts of meat and top shelf liquor, he's probably a rich merchant's barstard, or summin. He's puttin' in on with the evil glares and whatnot. It's bloody trickery so's we just ignore the weird quiet fella as he goes around Old Plateau with a bag full of coin! He probably bought a cask of blood from the butchers to put a scare ta anyone coming too close!" A notably smaller man replied, attempting to placate the only man there who could actually swing a sword. If the bloke they were looking for was at home, he alone wouldn't cut it.

Stinton could pick pockets with the best of them, but intimidation wasn't his forte. He blagged and exaggerated about the job, and drew a fellow criminal into the fray with promises of plentiful coin. Knocking over an occupied house is easier if you aren't 4 foot tall, and didn't look like a tween.

"It doesn't smell like anything the butcher has, you tit! It stinks like the Dark Quarter after the Guardsmen butchered that gang that kidnapped kids! Fucking bodies everywhere, every fucking type scattered about the stonework. Like iron and piss."

"I don't give a toss, fella. I'm gettin' whateva the fuck he has, or I'm torchin' the place."

The two of them continued along the undergrowth west of the town, in search of an out of the way shack supposedly belonging to a reclusive man who first showed up to town 4 months ago. The man in question had been seen going to anywhere where the lowest price for goods was worth 2 months wages for the common folk, and people started to notice. Had he been a noble, noone would have spared a glance at the dark robed man, but he wasn't. No crest and no crown. Meaning he was ripe for the picking.

"Wait, wos' that say? Can you read that from here, elf boy?" said the half man, teasingly.

"Course I can. Says, 'walk past the line, and you die'. Scratched onto a plank, looks like." He ignored the racial comment.

"That's just adorable, aint' it. Heh."

The men carefully traispsed up to the sign they spotted, looking for whatever line the notice described. The sign was barely hanging on to the twigs holding it up, and the line came into view on the forest floor, demarked by the small pebbles embedded into the ground.

"Silly bastard thinks this is gonna hold us back does he? Must've spent some time on this whole theatre act." Scoffed the half man.

Dannis on the other hand, felt like he was being watched; A viper was about to coil around his throat and sink his fangs into his chest, and he could feel it's sting. His sharp sense for danger had saved him from the Guardsmen's sword more than once, and he'd learned to trust it.

"I'm not going." Dannis couldn't stomach this feeling.

"Bugger this. If you were sober you'd see what a bad idea this is. I'm about ready to start running back to town..."

Stinton's face turned sour, and he exclaimed to his accomplice, spittle flying and face blood red. "Im sick of this talk. Fuck off then you lanky twat! Don't fuckin' need you anyway! Don't expect a crumb of my holdings when I rip this hermit off!" With an exaggerated goosestep, the half man crossed the demarcation gliggling to himself.

That prick's just security. I can do this myself. Greed clouded his judgement. Thinking of the bigger cut he'd have, he decided to turn back to his now former partner in crime, and motioned his index and middle fingers thrusting into his other closed hand.

"Taste these now and after I take your mother for a meal and a shag, you twiggy - "

The half man heard nothing as his conscience was banished from the world. His would-be accomplice heard the ear splitting report a quarter second later, but not before he saw the half man's head grow and bloom into a crimson monstrosity, skull and brain matter divorcing from each other within the blink of an eye. The Half-Elf fell to the forest floor in shock, remaining there in a stunned slump before clearing his eyes and mouth of the detritus of his former ally. Spitting and gagging, Dannis attempted to stand on his buckling legs, and summon any remaining impetus he might have to stagger away from the sign.

"Fuck!" he bellowed out, half screaming and half whimpering, voice breaking. Eventually, his legs stopped shaking, and the brain fog cleared up enough to know he should be running as fast as he can away from the body of that idiot and back to civilisation.

Three quarters of a mile away, a tired looking man stood up from the small grassless hill he was perched on, and wiped his brow.

"Get the message, you thieving bastards." he whispered to himself. He lifted up the long metal contraption he had in his arms with some difficulty, and made his way over to a small wooden hut. It could be a hole in the ground for all he cared, but he'd die before he let some scumbag step foot in the only place he could take comfort in this foreign world.