Eliza Sussaridge was counting the gold coins. They were rough-cast without a stamp on them except for a crude picture of a dragon, but when she put them on scales with one of her own coins, they weighed the same. For a moment she wondered about forsaking her mission and instead becoming her cover.

When Steph walked in accompanied by another kobold (this one taller and in armor) Eliza's focus got split. Behind the pair walked two young women (a human and a fox kin) that seemed adorned with guns. The eleven thousand gold Eliza was counting suddenly seemed like pocket change as she eyed the weapons—two of them were obviously mithril and, even though she'd never dealt with it before, she could judge that the dull metal one that the fox kin hefted with some sign of weight was adamantine.

If Eliza could have cursed, she would have. No one except a noble with more gold than sense had weapons made of such exotic materials. She instead kept a straight face as she counted the coins.

"Sooo," the armored kobold said, "Brolly said you two were the best for this thing, so let's talk. He's fine lending us a whole squad to go with you two as escorts. You'll all get as many talismans as you can carry, and you'll be delivering this—"

Realizing that they'd stopped talking and were looking at her, Eliza cleared her throat. "Want me to count this somewhere else?"

Steph shook his head. "You're okay to keep counting there. We'll move. Fife, ladies?" He stood up and gestured to an office built into one corner of the large, open warehouse.

"I'm not a lady?" the kobold, apparently named Fife, asked as she stood.

Banter aside, Eliza was well aware that the two women with all the guns seemed to take note of her appearance. They didn't simply look, either, they paid the kind of attention that those in Eliza's profession didn't like. Not wishing to break her cover, she returned to what the merchant she appeared to be would do—she counted gold.

In the room she'd been assigned, Eliza had slept through the night with her bag of gold, several daggers, and numerous talismans on the harness she wore under her sleeping gown. Suspecting there might be some kind of attack, she was pleasantly surprised to wake and find everything exactly as she'd left it. Even the telltales she'd placed on the door, magical and non-magical, were still intact.

Resolving to find herself a tavern that had a bath, Eliza got dressed in some clothes that weren't road-stained and started carefully equipping her tools of the trade again. Daggers, picks, slipping tools, a hidden set of vials containing useful chemicals, and a small stack of papers she could use to accomplish various deeds legally.

The last was an assortment of coins, each woven into a belt that could be wrapped around her waist to hide them and still make them easy to retrieve. Even if Steph had implied it was easy to get gold in Northridge, she hadn't found a city yet that had someone important who wouldn't like more.

Not for the first time did she question her job, her mission, and her motives. She took advantage of the corrupt, she pushed them out of control, and she ensured those who knew how to lead were in charge when all the dust had settled. Her work was dirty because she had to deal with the dirt. "Okay. Time to face the dirty."

She left the kobold trading house. Left them with her wagon and all its dirty secrets. She needed to find and make contacts, and the easiest contacts to make were those she knew the price of. It was a short walk to the trading square and all the gold-hungry folks that dwelt there.

Of all the merchants, she found one who was packing up his stall. She approached. "Can I help with anything?"

The young man looked up from where he was packing cases of weapons away. "If you want to buy my place in the market, you'll have to ask the councilor."

"You're leaving? I'm Liz, by the way." Helping despite his lack of answer on the subject, she started sealing up the cases with practiced efficiency. She was surprised to see most of them full of new guns. "There's a gunsmith in town?" This tickled her memory, and brought to mind that every single guard she'd seen in this young town had been equipped with one or two guns. That was something odd that she was prepared to kick herself for not realizing at the time.

"I'm leaving for now. John," the man said, thrusting a hand out to Eliza and shaking hers. "I'll be coming back once I've sold this lot and hired the people I need to. This city is going places, and mark my word they need strong arms to help it get there."

"You really think a small city like this can grow fast?" Sometimes information and opinion cost something other than gold. Eliza was fine paying for the merchant's time with her own labor.

"I'll tell you one thing: It's not the goods that I'm moving that will make me the most gold from this run—it's working for the dungeons."

Eliza kept working for a moment, nodding—then froze as the plurality sank in. "Dungeons?"

"Yeah. I thought the verdant one was just for farming, but it seems like its boss has figured out some things from Travis. Breath of Spring is her name, and she is paying me an unbelievable amount for seed-stock." John laughed and shook his head. "I normally trade in weapons, but I'm happy to fill my wagons with grain and cram in crafter folk where there's room on the way back, if they're willing to sell me weapons to trade."

Having to bully herself into simply absorbing the information and moving on, Eliza nodded. "I sold some cloth to Steph. He's from this Travis dungeon?"

"Travis, yeah. He's nice enough. You can't talk to him directly, but with one of his kobolds to speak for him, it all works out fine. The other dungeon is another matter. Rumors are it's not as awake as Travis or even Northridge, but its boss is learning from Steph, and that makes her scary-smart."

"How many dungeons are in this city?" The question slipped out in a rush. Eliza blinked in surprise at having asked it, but John seemed to take it with a laugh. "Sorry. I'm trying to make sense of this place. The road gets a bit dusty, and finding somewhere more permanent might be a good plan."

"It's okay. You're helping me out here, and it's nice to have someone to talk to. There are two dungeons in the city, Travis and the verdant one. Both are safe to explore on the first level, though you should ask someone inside for assistance. Travis has an exit somewhere in the southern forest, while the verdant has an exit to its original location, a fort to the south-east. A quick warning, don't annoy either of them. Offer to do business, sure, but gaining their ire will make you a target of Northridge itself."

"How old is the city? I didn't think it would have quickened by now."

"Northridge is full of surprises. When the northerners attacked and breached the city walls, we hid in the dungeons until all of them were cleared out, then Northridge repaired its walls with magic. So, yeah, it's quickened, and we're all glad it is."

Stopping herself from expressing the shock she felt, Eliza shrugged. "I guess this place really is moving up fast. I still have some things to sell, so I might see about renting your stall here."

"Go ahead, but if you ask me, the real money is coming out of the dungeons. Find work you can do for them, and you'll go a long way." John hefted the last crate onto his wagon and nodded. "That's that done. I'll probably be back in a few weeks."

The truth behind that was a problem for Eliza. She had to discern if the dungeons, the city itself, or the councilors were in charge of things. If it was the first, she'd have to prioritize and build an entirely new attack system to accomplish her ends. "I'll keep a seat warm for you."

With her source of information depleted (and vacated), Eliza decided to make a move on the council first. It wasn't far back to the central hub of the city, and as she approached the front door she saw the juggernaut of dull metal leaving. A dungeon monster, for sure, though Eliza was unable to figure out what kind. The armor, sword and shield, and several guns on their person (all holstered and sheathed) were the best indication that she didn't want to get involved with them.

She gave the monster time to leave before she walked up to the front door and knocked. After a few moments an older man answered the door. "I'm here to see Councilor Sellswell."

"Ah. Of course you are. Do you have an appointment? Do come in." The man gave Eliza room to enter and she found herself in a large entry hall that had goods stacked around the walls: sacks of produce, crates, and weapons all featured among the stock. "Have a seat. Would you like a drink?"

It wasn't too uncommon for a city council to have a retainer, even for a city this small. Eliza was just about to reply that she would like something when Christine Sellswell walked into the room and looked around.

"Ah, the new merchant who sold to Steph? Sorry, Howard, but she already sold all the high-grade cloth she'd brought in."

"Blast," Howard said. "I've sent word to Far Reach that we'll buy any cloth they can ship, but I believe Liz here and her caravan left before the message arrived."

Eliza realized she'd been played by the old man. He wasn't a retainer at all. "I can assure you that if I'd heard such a missive, there wouldn't have been space for anything but myself on my wagon."

Howard gave her a big, fatherly smile. "I'm very glad to hear that. Now, what can we do for you?"

They weren't going to make this easy for her. Singling out a leader and isolating them was her normal go-to. "Firstly, I'd like to rent a stall in the market. Despite the generosity of Steph and his sponsor, I still have things to sell."

"Ah yes, Travis has had his feelers out to buy plenty of products, but he needs specific things. Fine tools aren't exactly what he needs. I wouldn't bother bringing weapons into Northridge—unless you have a cannon." Christine put enough emphasis on the last words that it piqued Eliza's interest.

"A cannon? How much is he—?"

"Go and ask him. I think he has a bounty on the first to be brought here," Howard said.

She'd been cornered and Eliza knew it. "I guess I will. How much will the stall cost me?"

Christine didn't need to look up her paperwork, she answered as though this were common business, which Eliza figured it was. "Standard fee is twelve percent of sales. You can have John Cartman's stall."

"How would I arrange a meeting with Travis?"

The resulting walk across the city gave Eliza time to collect her thoughts and sort through the information she'd already gained. There were two dungeons, one less active than the other, but both capable of being a significant part of the city. The city itself was quickened and, more, seemed to be cozy with the dungeons.

It was all a side issue, and one for someone who came after her to ultimately solve. All Eliza had to do was figure out where the holes were in the council's grip and drive spikes into them. There were three members, the paperwork the city had lodged told her that much, but the identity of the third, Brolly Windchime, was a mystery. If she had to guess, she would call it the leader of the city guard. That was always the harder nut to crack. No, she would sympathize with the merchant, Christine Sellswell, and remove Brolly and Howard from the equation.

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This story is released under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. If you are paying money to see this or the original creator, Damaged, is not credited, you are viewing a plagiarized copy of the story.