All you are is a gun.

The rigid shaft

And metallic make,

With grip untouched

But still worn all the same.

-All You Are Is A Gun, by Ra

He felt it as soon as he touched her; a sticky tar that crawled up his arm and flowed seamlessly into the curse in his soul. It made him ache a bit more than usual, which he tried to cope by laughing it off with a small chuckle. That backfired soon enough, as Reuth Giapain entered the room at that moment and gave him a look the godling knew all too well to be disgust.

"Get off her, godling. You look like a little creep smiling like that." Reuth's neck mouth said.

"No, I was-" Micha stopped as he contemplated on telling Reuth about his condition, but at the last second decided against it. I don't even know him. Who knows what he'll do to me if I tell him.

"So, how is she?" Reuth asked the ward in charge of healing the burnt-up woman.

"She was on the decline until a few seconds ago. Now she's recovering, slowly. At the current rate, she'll be fully functional in two days. However, she will need to get a replacement arm, as this one is too far gone to be regenerated." The ward motioned to the arm completely encased in bandages and cocooned in magic circles.

"Will she be okay?" Micha asked, hopeful.

"I'm afraid I can't answer that. I'm just a healing ward." The ward sighed before retreating back into itself, once more engrossed with the task of saving a life.

"The way I see it, she must be from a good family if she's got enough power to take down a couple assasins on her own. So, we're going to hold her here while she's healing up, but we're also going to keep an eye out for any bounties that pop up looking for her." Reuth explained without prompt as he turned around and walked to the door.

"What about the job? From that scary three-headed monster?" Micha asked, anxious not to make more enemies.

"I'm doing it right now, which means you get the lovely job of staying here and making sure toasty there stays still." Reuth's crown mouth managed to say before it became hidden under a wide-brim hat.

Micha simply shrugged and followed his captor out up to the door leading outside, a brief instance of recklessness goading him to try and make a run for it, but he stayed put. Reuth passed the threshold and didn't even look back as the door closed on its own and an audible lock slid into place. Security wards followed suit, flaring briefly into sight before disappearing, which was Micha's cue to turn back and head towards a nearby couch.

He sank into its soft depths and yawned, stretching his still cuffed arms and legs as much as he could before settling into an awkward hug with one of the couch' pillows. For the first time since he came to the Retribution Fields, the feeling of sleep came to Micha, and he couldn't be more relieved to receive it. With slower and slower breaths, Micha sank deeper and deeper, feeling his lungs fill with relief before an unearthly scream shattered all promises of unencumbered sleep.

Micha scrambled to his feet as they brought him to the source of that sound, right up to the room where the burnt womab was being healed. He opened the door and found the occupant thrashing about as healing wards tried their best to restrain her, to no avail.

"Hey, calm down! You're really hurt!" Micha did his best not to get punched or kicked as he got closer to the woman. Of course, this being the godling cursed with bad luck, means he failed a lot of times and subsequently became quite bruised by the time he got right up beside the woman's head.

"Quit it! Don't make me touch you again!" Micha said as he narrowly missed slamming his face to the woman's own.

Reuth Giapain had lied to Micha Ostor. He was instead preparing for a different job, but no less important. He went first to procure several items, namely: several near-expiration-date holding bags, two dozen low-quality magic stones, two high-quality scribbling paper, a pack of color pencils and a homeless street artist simply called 'Hobo'. The plan was to combine the magic stones and the color pencils with the artist to create at least a dozen Impagines, which would've then proceeded to try and make 'art' with anything and anyone unfortunate enough to be in their line of sight. The drifter hoped the disturbances would be loud and annoying enough for the local muscle and eye-in-the-walls to move in and try to contain the situation from escalating any further.

What Reuth didn't account for was that the artist was also a recovering magic stone addict, and had been clean for almost five years in a row. Hobo thought he had been cured completely, and that the magic stones had no sway over him, but the longer he spent time with Reuth, the magic stones dangling close by on the drifter's belt, the more the siren's call of his past took hold. Finally, just as Reuth was about to fuse the magic stones with the color pencils, Hobo snatched the magic stones and crushed them all against his forehead, laughing maniacally as his body disintegrated into fine dust and carried off by the wind.

All in all, it was a failure, but a tap on his shoulder led him to turn around and encounter a most peculiar stranger. It was a gigantic, flaming lemming with a vest and a spear of similar size tied to one of its paws, which it manipulated with surprising dexterity. Upon the lemming's head was a crown of mahogany wood upon which carvings inlaid with gold glowed with awesome power.

Your chaos amuses us. What do you have in mind for more? The lemming's voice boomed through the minds of everyone nearby, though the street was strangely empty at the moment. Reuth Giapain tossed a familiar-looking coin at the lemming, which was caught by an invisible hand and brought up to one enormous trashcan-lid-sized eye.

"It will be a fair trade if everything goes well." The drifter said while shifting from foot to foot. "The Trium Illustricate gets their bomb, you get to have your fun, and I get my next lead." Reuth waited as the lemming processed it all.

You also have ... the godling. Give him to us, and we can give you the information you seek right now. The lemming's hearty laugh echoed back and forth, though its drooling mouth and hungry eyes bellied the greed that ruled the inner working's of this beast. Reuth thought about it for a moment before shaking his head, which was responded in kind by an earth-shattering slam by the lemming with its spear.

You are fast. Amusing. Goodbye. The lemming evaporated from view, leaving behind an expanding blanket of hot air which seemed to restart time once more and bringing back the crowds that were absent. Left in the middle of it all and the road, Reuth Giapain suddenly finds himself with a need for a good smoke or two, before moving on.

He was going to need a bomb.