Blackrock Mercenaries

It didn't take long to find suitable lodgings in the small fishing town. Penny hadn't lied that both she and Sasha were popular. That, combined without new somewhat celebrity status from Rita's bout against Garret, I found an open room for a reasonable price.

It wasn't large, but they would have somewhere to sleep. Once we had settled in, I found myself in a seat around the small table. Idly, I toyed with the handle of the small teacup from the set our host provided.

Sasha's fidgeting brought my attention away from the cup, and together with the others, we watched her. After a deep breath, and tucking some of her brown curls behind her ear, she started the explanation we had come for.

"During your second to last year of the academy, the teachers there will assign you a merchant to apprentice with. A chance for you to get real world experience, and understand what effect your potions will have on actual people."

I didn't miss the way she glanced at Penny when she said that, who grinned and shifted in her seat. Sasha shook her head, and then continued.

"They also did this because the Academy isn't interested in the business side of things. We were there to learn to brew, not to count coins. Due to my skill, they assigned me to Tenner. All I knew at the beginning was that he had made quite the profit for the academy and was one of their favourite merchants."

No one moved as she spoke, though I could see the way Penny watched her. There was a look in her eye. As though she expected that she would need to speak up. Though in defense of Sasha, or condemnation of Tenner, I wasn't sure.

Across the table, Rita sat stone faced. A judge listening to a criminal plea of mercy.

I did my best to remain non-judgemental. Though that the kingdom's alchemists were not being taught anything about business within the academy was interesting. Not that the revelation was the important part of her tale.

Sasha took a sip of her tea. "When I got told who I was travelling with, I was excited. Everyone told me he had worked with some of the best and brightest. I thought it was my teacher's subtle sign of respect. We journeyed together for a while. His methods were to have me brew whatever was needed, and he would sell it."

"Where you couldn't see, no doubt." I couldn't help but think.

"At night, he would show me the books and explain the math of it all. How and why people bought one thing over another, and the prices he charged for them. It wasn't arduous work, and I enjoyed it." The room fell silent as she seemed to stare into the air near the ceiling. "But I realised something a few months in. The money we were making seemed like a lot. Not that I could confirm that. It was more of a gut instinct. My parents raised me in a fishing village near the center sea. We had our fair share of traders."

Penny opened her mouth like she was going to speak, but Rita held up a finger to cut her off. Sasha tossed her a grateful look.

"Not long after I got that feeling, I snuck out."

As she said those words, she fiddled with her cup. Penny shot Rita a glare, but the other woman ignored it. I kept my focus on Sasha. It wasn't hard to figure out where this story was going, but it was clear she wanted to say it. The difficulty was finding the words. She met my eye, and I gave her a slight nod. Not enough to be commanding, but enough to let her know I was listening. A trick I had found useful in a variety of meetings with new employees.

"His prices were insane." Her words, though soft, held the same rage I had seen when she slashed his arm. "He didn't care. The hamlet we had stopped in was a small place, barely big enough for the few farmers it had. They had nothing, not really. There was a boy, he was sick."

Penny growled, and so did Rita. It was odd to see the more animalistic nature of the Cathinil coming into play like this. I stayed silent, simply watching.

"The mother didn't have the coin, and so he refused. I found out what was wrong and mixed up the medicine he needed from the supplies. Slipped part of my pay in to cover it. I didn't think he would notice. But I didn't add in enough. He wanted to charge them a gold for a potion that took me less than an hour to put together."

Sasha drew herself up. "When he confronted me, I told him what I had done. He went ballistic. Told me I was stealing from him, from the academy. So I punched him. Hard. Then I left with whatever supplies I could carry."

"So you struck him on principle and left your apprenticeship. Did you tell the academy?" I asked, though I felt I knew the answer.

"No." She shook her head. "Not much point. I had seen his figures, and knew what they're cut was. They wouldn't side with me. Besides, I stumbled on Penny and had my hands full."

Penny laughed. "Aww, I love you too."

"Are you going to lose control every time you see him?"

That question came from Rita, and Sasha shook her head. "No. The shock of it got me. Now I know he's here, I can simply steer clear."

"Is that what you want to do?" My words hung in the air, and I felt the eyes on me. With a minute shift, I adjusted myself in my chair and continued. "The guard captain isn't happy with him, nor from the words we exchanged with Lord Henry, is he. If you want him taken down a peg, this might be the best opportunity."

"I thought you wanted to get the lord back home, so that we can finish your previous plan?" Rita asked, and though she was trying to sound professional, I could hear the bemusement in her words.

"We can do both. Until we deal with the Kraken, we're stuck here. Besides, there's price gouging customers and what he's doing. I'm not moral, but this annoys me."

Rita nodded slowly. "So you would like to deal with it?"

"With your permission."

"Fine. Provided it doesn't interfere with anything else." Rita smiled. "I'll help where I can. You're right, it's scummy."

"Damn right it is!" Penny agreed, and then leaned over to hug Sasha, who accepted it with a grateful look.

"So I take it you have a plan to deal with this, then?"

I pondered Rita's question and gave a small shrug. "Not yet. First, we need to work on Lord Henry's project. Sasha, he wants to talk to us over dinner tonight. Are you able to get your itching powder idea sorted by then?"

"It depends on what we can find at the market, but I should have a small test batch ready."

"Excellent."

After some brief discussion on roles, we finished our tea and moved into the market. We had little in the way of cash on hand, but what we had we spent with on Sasha's project. As we returned to the room, we found ourselves stopped.

"Excuse me," a woman asked us, "You said at the fight that you might be available for work?"

She was short and round, and wearing a rather basic homespun dress. Her worried expression, combined with the way she wrung her hands, didn't fill me with confidence. Rita shot me a look, and I stepped forward.

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"We are indeed, ma'am. How can we be of service?" My words were light, and I gave her my best smile.

"There's a man I'm looking for. A tenant of mine, who ducked out on paying his debts. I was wondering if you had any way to track him down?"

At her words, Penny bounced on her heels with excitement. I shot her a look, and she grinned at me impertinently. She mouthed the word skill, and Poker Face stopped me from frowning. That didn't make sense. If she was an Archer, why would she have tracking skills?

"Unless she was training to be a ranger? But even then…"

"We can do that," Rita confirmed. "Do you have a name or a picture? Something of his?"

I watched as the woman scrounged in the small belt pouch she wore for a comb. It was a fine metal piece, with an engraving that read S. C. Before Rita could take it, I coughed, drawing her attention back to me.

"Our fee ma'am. Perhaps you would like to come in to discuss it? Simple paperwork, you understand."

"Oh." She blinked. "Yes, of course."

Soon, I was sitting at the table with Penny and Rita as Sasha moved into a separate corner to begin her work. Across from us, the woman, who introduced herself as Frienna, explained more about her predicament.

"Simon Cathil was renting a room from me, you see. He was a merchant who was following Lord Henry. But he vanished this morning, and his payment is due today. I asked around at the market, of course, and his wagon is still here, but no one has seen him."

I nodded along with her words. "Strange. How much was he paying you?"

"A silver coin, a fortnight." She glanced at the comb sitting on the table. "Regular as clockwork until today."

"And was he acting strangely? Did he mention anything to you?" Rita asked, like she did this sort of work all the time and not simply found children who went to hide in the woods.

"Not at all."

"I can find him," Penny said with full confidence. "Can we go now?"

"Once we figured out the pay." I reassured her.

To my relief, Frienna didn't appear to want to haggle too hard. For a handful of copper, she wanted us to track him down. At first, I pushed for a gold, but it was Penny who argued the woman's case.

"It doesn't make sense for her to pay us more than she'll get from him, and I want this job!"

With a shake of my head, I agreed. Once she had left, I turned to Rita.

"How do you want to split up for this?" I asked her.

She paused. "Go with Penny. You have your gun?"

"I do."

"Alright. She'll find him. Then, if he's trapped somewhere, come back to me. If he's simply in debt, drag him back here. Someone has to stay with Sasha."

"They don't," Sasha disagreed. "No one's going to try anything. You two both go with him. But don't forget the appointment."

She met my chuckle with a grin of her own and nodded before I said. "We won't, trust me. Are you sure you'll be ok?"

"Positive."

With that, we left her to work. Penny skipped along in front of us, her head turning this way and that. I trailed after Rita, feeling somewhat out of place. She glanced my way occasionally, but none of us spoke much until we reached the market. It was busy, and we moved through it.

Penny was like a woman on a mission. She would push through the crowd until she halted. A glance at the cone, and then a sniff at the air, and then she was off again. I glanced at Rita, who gave a small smile.

"It's her set of skills."

"I thought she was an archer," I asked quietly.

Penny answered before Rita could. "A sharpshooter has to spot her targets. If I want to evolve my class correctly, then I need to find them, too."

I nodded along. While people had written multiple guides on how the system worked, I had to admit, outside of my class, I knew little about it. We continued going until we stopped at an empty cart. A few merchants were shooting it dirty looks, though that changed when Penny simply jumped inside.

"Hey!" a man nearby shouted, pointing a meaty hand in our direction as his thick eyebrows furrowed. "That's Simons."

"That we're aware, good sir. His landlord has hired us to track him down to recover his missing rent payments. From what she said, he vanished this morning. You wouldn't happen to have seen him?" I asked casually, moving to the men as Rita followed Penny inside.

The sound of rummaging was drawing attention, but thankfully I got an answer from the man who yelled at Penny. "He's not been here all day. I think I saw him at that fight that red head was at though. Why?"

"Did you?" I tried not to sound eager, and I desperately wished I had any coins on me for bribery. "For how long?"

"A few minutes. Then he ran off."

"I see. Thank you so much for your time."

As I was ending things, Penny appeared. She had something scrunched up in her hand, and Rita was giving me a concerned look. With another nod to the two men, I followed Rita out of the market and into a nearby alleyway. There, Penny showed me what she had found. It was two items, a rather small square of lace, and a yellow headband.

For a moment, neither of us said anything and simply stared, then I broke the silence. "The Howlers and The Lace Courier company are working together?"

"Or Simon was working for both of them?" Rita said, taking the headband from Penny.

It wasn't one of the enchanted ones, but I knew that was being done by an enchanter back in Yuliosa. I didn't know what connected these two groups, or why they worked together, but it concerned me. The fact he left them both behind concerned, too. Everyone knew if you were burning a business, you shredded your documents. That had to be true elsewhere.

"How much of a hurry did he leave in?"

"Penny," Rita asked. "Can you keep tracking him?"

"Of course."

With a bounce in her step, Penny moved off, and we followed. We walked through the town, taking turns that kept us away from the main thoroughfares. I couldn't be sure how accurate all this was, but whatever path Simon took being seen was clearly not on his priority list. As we drew close to the wall, I looked up at the massive ballista that sat on the walls.

They seemed to overshadow everything, and the sheer presence unnerved me. I had seen the kraken's tentacle, and even these machines of destruction didn't feel like enough. Though, I reminded myself, that was why we were having Sasha try to drive it away.

The trail stopped at a small door next to the gate. While closed, the broken lock made it obvious someone had used it. No guards were around, though that didn't surprise me. With Lord Henry's mad plan so well known, no one was going to want to be anywhere near the docks.

"He went down the elevator, didn't he?" I asked, as we opened the door and gazed towards the cliffside.

"Yup!" Penny sounded chipper. "Are we going to follow?"

Fear filled me at the idea of being that close to the water now that I knew what was in it. With a shake of my head, I took a step back. Rita watched me and seemed to agree with my sentiment.

"Not much point. If he's at the docks, he'll have rowed elsewhere. The Kraken won't care about a small vessel so close to here. Especially not if Lord Henry has test fired the ballista. More than likely, our wayward merchant is up the coast and gone."

"So, are we giving Frienna her money back?"

"Nope." I cut in before Rita could. "We'll tell her we found the clothes at the docks and he left town. She wanted him found, and the contract didn't have a clause in it for repayment on failure."

"Chad," Rita said warningly.

"Come on, Rita, we need the money."

"No."

"But—"

She growled. "No. I'm fine with taking money for jobs we complete, but not for this. Not for a failure."

"If that's what you want, boss," I said, words as calm as I could make them.

"I do." Her tone brooked no arguments. "Come on. We have to go tell our client what happened, and then get ready for our meeting."

With one last look at the gate, I followed Rita, already rehearsing what we were going to tell the lord. It didn't take us long to find Frienna, and explain the situation. Though I subtly tried to imply we should keep the payment, she demanded it back. As Rita and the woman chatted, Penny shot me a wink and moved up beside me.

"Don't worry. We're getting paid."

I kept my expression neutral as I whispered back. "Are we?"

"Course." She pulled a group of silver and gold coins out of her pocket. "A man running that fast doesn't get the chance to grab everything. I doubt he even went back to the wagon after he saw Rita's fight."

"And if she asks where it came from?" I glanced at Penny, who put the coins away.

"We liberated it."

"Works for me."

"Aww, you're the best big brother I could have asked for." She beamed and wiggled in her seat.

Rita caught the motion, and we quickly excused ourselves before heading back to find Sasha. She was finishing up, and so I moved to handle the more tedious matters.

I hurried to hire someone to draw up baths and get everyone's clothes set out. By the time we were done, everyone was wearing something nice. As we reached The Golden Scale, it was almost time.

One of Lord Henry's servants met us at the door. He opened it and then bowed us through.

"He's waiting for you all in the dining room. Don't worry, we've had it cleared."

I thanked him, and then we stepped forward, ready for the meeting to get underway.