Dragon Realm Scorch

The rowdy cries bounced around the walls of the small warehouse. Once, the building served as a factory for siege engines during the War of Chains; now long abandoned and run down, it had since been delegated as housing for underground activities within the more deviant community. Last night it was a bazaar for contraband weapons, today it served as a gambling circuit for animal fighting.

Guster pushed himself further through the crowd of war veterans, dock workers, tradesmen, and the wealthy looking for a quick sendetti and a good time. Dolled up prostitutes served liquor and cigars as promoters shouted out the odds for each match. Several creatures were brought into make-shift pits built out of crates circling around each battlefield. Rough hands prodded the small, frightened creatures into the center of the ring with ember-burning sticks - into the fight for survival.

Guster stopped to watch a fight between a wing-clipped falcon and a bulky rat. The falcon had a natural advantage from the air, but the rat made short work of it by sinking its gnawing incisors through the neck of the bird. Guster grimaced at the screeching of the falcon as it gasped for air, drowning in its own blood. He reached for a glass of whiskey as a server passed by, swallowing the drink in one gulp. Spotting a stout-bellied man watching a scorpion battle a rattlesnake, he tapped the short man on the shoulder. The man turned, exposing his bushy face, covered in a sticky sauce from a meaty appetizer. He looked Guster up and down, smiled, then turned his head back to the action.

“You McDunder?” shouted Guster over the load roars of the crowd.

The man glanced back at Guster. “I am,” he rattled off before focusing back on the scorpion.

Guster narrowed his eyes. He'd prefer to command McDunder's full attention for this

exchange.

“You’re my contact. You’ve got info I need. Let's talk away from all dis.”

The man raised a single finger.

Guster shot a stare full of daggers at the arrogant man. “Listen up McDunder, I'm in a bit of a rush. So how bout we chat now and you deal with your critters later.”

McDunder turned back around, his face annoyed with Guster’s impatience. He finished the drops of ale from his glass and responded with a gruff, “You came to see me? You need info from me? As far as I’m concerned, you can wait for this match to finish or you can gather the intel on your own. Understand, Guster?”

Guster's mouth curled as he pursed his lips. He tipped his brown hat, then pushed between McDunder and the other patrons. “Oh, Guster understands alright. You can't talk to me until your lil' critter fight is over.”

McDunder's eyes widened with worry as Guster climbed over the wooden boxes and into the ring. “Guster, what are you doing?”

Guster raised a boot and thrust it down, crushing the scorpion with a crunch. The arachnid's guts spewed out under the weight of the foot. A resounding 'boo' called out all around the bounty hunter as he scraped the remains of the creature along the floor, attempting to clean his boot. He kicked a crate to the side and strutted past the shocked McDunder. “I want my info,” spat the bounty hunter. He looked behind him. His contact had yet to move. “Now!” he shouted with ferocity in his voice.

“Guster, Guster, Guster. Always charging at your problems head first like a squealing hog, aren’t you?”

Guster rolled his eyes in annoyance as Siv stepped in front of him, wearing her long, white bounty hunter duster and an irritated grimace.

“I ain’t got no time for you, Siv.”

“You better make time, swamp rat!” growled Siv, “I know you took the same job as me! “You afraid of a little race?” Guster swept his thumb underneath his nose and smirked. “Dat

ain’t the Siv I used to know.”

Siv scowled darkly, balling up her fists.

“Tell you what, Siv, why don’t we team up? Be like de ole’ days. You, me, de Knife and Needle crew!” Guster smiled as Siv pondered the idea.

“You ain’t going to stab me in the back like the snake you’ve grown to be, right?”

“We take down Uther together. Split de boon. Promise, no funny business.” Siv chewed her lip, but reluctantly offered her hand to mark the truce.

Guster shook her hand fervently. “Dat’s my girl!” Guster turned back to his contact. “Now about my-our info.”

***

“Your mark is indeed in Nacsirri. He searches for a guide to get him through the Desert of the Damned. However, he has found himself in a jam because the only guides are yikahti and they haven't been seen in Nacsirri in decades. Word on the wind says he is looking to buy a yikahti slave that can serve as a guide. The problem with his plan is the fact that Nacsirri is known as 'the City of Freedom'; slavery has been banned for years. You two are in luck. Uther is going to be stuck here for a while until a trader can smuggle in a yikahti slave that is also knowledgeable about that desert. I've heard he spends his time waiting in Madam Blackrose's bordello, most likely taking in the finer pleasures of a freed man and dulling his senses with opium. I would advise you to strike then. Madam Blackrose may not approve of slave catching in her territory, but she might turn a blind eye for a Laroux.”

Guster brushed away a waft of white smoke hanging in the air like a coat of Lost Dawn's mist. The aroma of foreign spices and sex flared in his nostrils as he kicked into each room of the brothel. Women hailing from each of the five Dragon Realms, dressed in the finest threads and adorned with gold, silver, and gemmed jewelry ran their hands over Guster’s body. They smiled and giggled, whispering lewd ideas into his ear and wavering their graceful hands down his shoulders and back. He grinned from the attention, but kept his focus on his task at hand.

“McDunder mentioned a Laroux connection with this brothel. This was before our time?” asked Siv as she trailed behind her partner. She kept a keen eye for their mark, not letting the mystique of the Blackrose distract her.

“De mistress dat run dis place was my ole’ man’s contact,” explained Guster. He looked back to Siv before continuing, “I used to spend part of my youth around dis place when I ran with him.”

“Home sweet home?”

“Somethin’ like dat.”

Making their way to the third floor, the two bounty hunters finally came into the sight of the exquisitely dressed shadow elf. She had cunning silver eyes and smooth violet skin. She dressed

in only an open silk black robe and her neck bore a long scar across its width. A black rose tattoo displayed above her right breast with its thorny stem wrapping around her back ending towards her navel.

“You're lucky your father was a gentleman, Guster, else I wouldn't even allow you to spend a gold sendetti on my girls,” sneered Madam Blackrose.

“Looks like you two have more history than Guster let on,” said Siv with a quick smirk. The elf inspected Siv with a look of disdain and boredom. “It would seem your standards in

women have made you settle for those of a… homelier persuasion, Guster.”

“Yeah, yeah, where is he, Velna?” Guster braced back Siv with his arm, dousing a flame instead of his usual stoking.

Her eyes briefly darted to the door that she blocked, then redirected back to Guster. “He spends good money here.”

Guster pushed the madame out of his way. “Yeah and I'm sure he's real good in de sack too. Out of my way Velna, I got business with him,” he finished before he kicked in the door, which threw off the lock, making it across the floor with a loud clunk.

Uther the Iron Soul lay in a round bed, propped up by the headboard. A tall and slender hookah sat next to the bed, made of polished silver engraved with ancient kings riding on horseback around it. A long hose rested in the former gladiator's bear claw-sized hand as three naked women slumbered against him, only waking when Guster barged in.

They screamed, grabbing the silk covers to hide their breasts from the stranger. Uther, himself wearing nothing save for a leather kilt, growled from the sudden intrusion. His tanned skin rippled over his humongous muscles, covered head to toe with thin scars. His jawline was a chiseled block, covered in a dark shadow of a spiny beard, his nose crooked as if every day of his life it was smashed in by a brick. One eye was a milky white, while the other had a cracked blue iris. Any question of whether he could still see was shattered as his good eye scanned Guster intensely before darting to Velna. She immediately ducked away, knowing a fight was coming.

“Who be you?” Uther shouted, his accent thick, from a remote part of the Dragon Realm Abyss, known for its rain forests and thousands of small islands.

“Out! Now!” Siv ordered the exotic women with a sharp bark.

Guster kept up his front of intimidation, swiftly kicking over a velvet bound chair and flipping over a nearby table of food. “We be de ones takin’ your ass in!”

Uther pushed off the bed and stood up, towering over the regular sized bounty hunters. “What you mean, 'taking'? Uther be a free man. Uther goes where he pleases. Uther been wit women, Uther been wit men. Uther eats, Uther drinks. Uther takes commands from one man and you not be him!”

Guster had to step back just to look at the man's face, as he was at least triple his height. He grinned, almost regretting his decision to take this job, but he had been in worse scraps. “My employer ain’t gonna want me to come back empty handed. Now you can come to her walkin’ in chains, or we can rumble and you can come to her on a stretcher!”

At first Uther chuckled, but soon it turned into a deep belly laugh.

Guster smiled and nodded his head to Siv. He rolled up his sleeves, revealing his hands clad in a pair of iron cestus battle gloves. Mustering as much strength as he could, he landed a bone-shuddering punch to Uther's gut. The giant didn't seem phased.

Replying with his own attack, Uther thrust out a large foot that threw Guster out the room's exit and crashed him into the wall across the hall. The ceiling shook with dust as large dent cracked around the Guster’s impact

The bounty hunter stumbled forward in a daze, but Uther roared and rammed into him with a shoulder charge.

Guster crashed further back into the plaster of the wall. Shaking himself back awake, he took hold of Uther's bald head and threw out several hay-makers, smashing his armored fist into the gladiator's cheek.

Siv fanned several venom coated needles in her fingers and released them up Uther’s back.

Uther grimaced, paying no mind to Siv and instead grabbed Guster's jacket collar and

slammed him into the wall, then into furniture, and into anything that could break. Determined

to slow down the gladiator’s advances, Siv unloaded another dosage of the tranquilizer.

Uther scrunched and twisted his grip before dropping the dazed bounty hunter and winding up a titan’s upper cut underneath Siv’s jaw, sending her flying up through the ceiling above.

Although Uther was numbed, but not listless, he torpedoed his fist back at Guster. Guster's pupil's shrunk with alarm as he ducked just in time for a thundering blow to break

straight through the wall, erupting into an unsuspecting room of guests.

He reached into his coat, pulled out a dagger, and stuck Uther in the ribs, twisting as he grinned with satisfaction. He lifted himself against the wall, reeled back his legs and planted both his feet onto his opponent's chest and grunted as he pushed Uther off of him.

Uther tripped backwards, freeing his arm from the collapsing wall. He fell onto the bed, breaking the frame under his immense weight, and crashing his skull into the headboard with a thud.

Siv dropped down from the dusty hole and wobbled into Uther’s room. “I’m nearly out of poison Guster.” She said, reaching for her leg strap of needles.

“Save them, I’ll finish him off,” Guster responded. He took advantage of the downed Uther and leapt on top of him. He placed half his weight on Uther's chest and popped a jab into the man's throat, gagging him. Wasting no time for Uther to recover, he threw a flurry of strikes into the gladiator’s face, splattering blood from his lip and nose.

Uther clenched his teeth in rage, grabbing the man by the shirt and yanking him towards his head. With a rattling crunch, Uther collided his brow into the bridge of Guster's nose. The bounty hunter careened backwards as blood squirted in an arc. He toppled onto the floor in a cloud of pain. Now it was Uther's turn to pummel Guster with a set of bludgeoning hits. Guster squirmed as he tried to hide from the onslaught, but to no avail.

Taking a fist full of needles, Siv jammed them into the side of the berserker’s neck.

Uther nearly collapsed from the drug flowing through his blood. He supported himself with one arm and took hold of Siv with the other. “You bitch!” he drunkenly spat.

“Sleep, it’ll be over soon,” she whispered.

Uther raised his lips, saliva dribbled from his lips and hefted Siv across the room with a mighty swing.

Siv collided against the wall, blacking out immediately from the concussive impact.

“Your…fight…is with me…asshole,” the battered and beaten Guster managed to croak. “No man has ever beat Uther! All men have tried, but no man has ever beat Uther! Why do

you think you any different?” Uther lifted Guster with one hand into the air.

Guster grinned through bubbling glops of dark, red liquid. He groaned and coughed, wheezing his a taunt, “Yeah… b-but a woman beat you… didn't she?”

Uther's eye quivered. “You are no Night Whisper!”