The tavern without a sign looked exactly the same as it had the last time — dark door, worn smooth, the faint smell of ale and smoke. I pushed it open and went in.
The bartender was a different one this time. Younger, less interesting, with the expression of someone doing a job rather than being a fixture. He looked at me.
I put the coin on the bar.
He looked at it. He looked at me. He disappeared through the back door without a word.
I waited.
Dan left me in suspense again, which I was beginning to understand was just how he operated — a big dramatic pause and then present before you'd registered his arrival, already talking before you'd finished being surprised. "Not here this time. Walk with me."
Dan walked the way he did everything — with unhurried confidence, like he had never once in his life needed to look like he belonged somewhere, because he always did. No bells on his hat today. No pointed shoes. But also no dark leathers like our last meeting. Just a plain tunic and breeches. I saw a small dagger tucked into his left boot.
He didn't explain where we were going. I didn't ask.
Through the winding streets we went, and I glanced around at the folks going about their lives, trying to discern who was just living here and who was doing more than that. It was not easy.
I noticed that nobody looked at Dan. Not deliberately avoided looking — just didn't. He had a quality of moving through spaces without registering in them, the way certain pieces of furniture become invisible through long familiarity. I filed that away.
We stopped in front of a building that announced itself, via a hand-painted sign above the door, as Bellweather's Clean and Press. Through the front window I could see racks of hanging garments in various states of completion, a broad wooden counter, and a woman behind it who was engaged in the deeply mundane act of folding shirts.
Dan opened the door.
The woman behind the counter didn't look up. "Dan."
"Marta."
"Here to see Stevie?"
"Well I'm not here to bathe in the scent of lavender and huckleberry."
"Shame. She's in her office."
She still didn't look up. We walked past her, through a door marked STAFF, down a short corridor that smelled strongly of lye and steam, and then down a set of stairs that had no business existing in a laundry.
At the bottom, Dan pushed open a heavy door.
I stepped through and took in what was on the other side.
It was, I had to admit, exactly what you'd expect.
Low ceilings, dark wood, oil lamps burning amber at irregular intervals. Maps on the walls with things marked on them in ink I couldn't read from where I stood. A long table running down the center of the room with chairs on both sides, most of them empty. Shelves of ledgers and locked boxes along one wall. It smelled like tobacco, old parchment and good whiskey.
It looked like someone had read a book about what a criminal organization's headquarters should look like and decided that was fine, actually.
Someone was already sitting at the far end of the table. "Lorne Callister."
The someone stood from their seat and I got a good look at them.
A woman. Lithe, dressed in muted but not inelegant clothing. Long black hair, tied back in a severe ponytail. Pale skin, hazel eyes that were already watching me like a hawk.
She knew me. She gave me the same feeling I had experienced the first time I saw Varkas. Like she was not to be trifled with, even slightly.
She strode easily toward me and leaned up against the table a short distance away. I noticed she had several daggers hidden on her person. Then it clicked. I had seen her before. "You're Silver Fang's rogue."
I recalled when I had seen her: months ago, in the city, venturing with the party out of the city. She wasn't wearing the black leather armor, but she was unmistakable on closer inspection.
She smiled thinly. "On occasion. Usually when I'm bored. Having a public persona helps keep the rest of my life quiet."
She proffered her hand to shake. I took it. As our hands clasped, she kept that same business-like smile. "I don't want to be overly threatening – that would be insane, given who I'm talking to – but I should mention that there are eyes on this room."
Dan spoke up. "Not that they're needed."
What on earth were they talking about? I was a janitor. And basically a kid. "Call me Stevie. I run this dump."
I took a second to process that. "You're the leader of the Silk Runners?"
"Well, if you wanna put too fine a point on it, yeah. But just in Moorhaven."
"And you know me?"
Her eyes were fixed on me intently. "Dan told me all about you. And naturally I was curious and dug a little deeper."
That unnerved me slightly. Why would this woman, arguably one of the most dangerous people in the city, take even a passing interest in me, let alone give me an audience?
She gestured to a cart bearing bottles and small boxes. "Whiskey? Cigar?"
"I'm set, thank you."
"Suit yourself."
She poured herself a glass of dark liquid from a decanter and lit a cigar before taking her seat back at the table. "Have a seat. Dan says you want something."
I sat. "I do. And I have information to trade for it."
The silence that followed lingered like her cigar smoke. "Well?"
I stared.
She rolled her eyes. "We're engaging in negotiation. What do you want?"
I cleared my throat. I had come to Dan with a series of questions I could potentially ask, but a new one had entered my mind just now, given new information. "I want to know why Silver Fang is sabotaging dungeon Cores."
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Her eyes narrowed slightly. "Who says Silver Fang is involved?"
"You were the only ones to clear the Ebon Maw before it started reopening. And you've cleared every dungeon we've found tampering in at some point, even ones that are so low level that you have no business in there... The Unnamed City Core had a contingency to respawn monsters, ostensibly to kill my team."
"So you want to meddle in Silver Fang business instead of guild affairs."
She sat forward in her chair. "A dangerous endeavor."
"I'm in a dangerous situation already, even more than I knew until just now. I find it hard to be afraid anymore."
"Oh, I know you're not afraid. Neither am I, against my better judgment."
There it was again. What was she saying? "Do you see this dagger?"
She drew a blade from her belt as she spoke and rested it on the table. It was simple but expertly forged. Sleek and dangerous looking. "Mhm."
"It's coated with the venom of a rare species of veilworm, found only in the Pale Wastes. Even a drop of it in your veins is a death sentence. No antivenom. Immune to healing magic. All I'd have to do is cut you ever so slightly, and you never walk out of here."
Dan piped up. "That's why they call her Stevie Nicks."
I processed the name and the implications of what she was telling me. "Noted. Any reason you're threatening me at the beginning of negotiations?"
She smiled again in that serious way, the tension in the room palpable. "Not a threat. Professional courtesy. I want you to know what you're up against should this conversation go sideways."
"...I'm a Janitor."
She gave a short laugh. "You are, indeed. But that console of yours tells a bigger story."
"What do you mean?"
"Another time, another deal, my young friend. Tell me what you have to offer in exchange for such…sensitive information about my party?"
I straightened up to my full height. "Lake Fortescue. A couple of weeks ago. Shipment of illegal contraband pulled from somewhere it shouldn't have been."
She nodded slowly. "You know how to play your cards close to the chest. I respect that."
She dipped the wet end of her cigar into her glass of whiskey before taking a long, contemplative puff. "Alright. I'll bite. You tell me what you know, and I'll answer your question."
I took a breath. "My team took a break from work at the Brackenflow. One thing led to another, we wound up at Lake Fortescue. Found a broken cart and signs of an accident. The scene was either abandoned or poorly cleaned. We found something on the lakeshore..."
"Well don't keep me in suspense, Callister."
"Elginarium. Partially refined so it doesn't go unstable in transit."
"And?"
"The Ebon Maw hasn't officially reopened. Even the Empire can't access it legally right now."
She sipped her whiskey. "And who's to say that wasn't our operation?"
I had her. I kept my expression blank. "Are you going to look me in the eyes and tell me that the Silk Runners are that sloppy?"
I had a realization at that moment. Where was this coming from? I was talking to this woman like I was her rival. How did I know how to banter with the leader of the Silk Runners?
She didn't seem as surprised as I was, for some reason. "...you're smart. I like smart people."
She leaned back in her chair and rested her legs on the table. "We knew about the cart. We had guild members watching it. Driver spotted them in the trees and it spooked him. Cart spun out, crashed."
I felt a pang of frustration. She already knew. "But you've just provided us with two key pieces of intel. One: We didn't know what was in the cart. Two: I didn't know my crew didn't clean the scene. I'll have to deal with that. So, I suppose, yes. We were sloppy."
I noted she took full responsibility for the mistakes of her underlings. I could respect that. "Is that satisfactory?"
For the first time, I saw her actually smile. It was both beautiful and dangerous. "Yeah. Yeah, that's really good stuff."
"So you'll tell me what I want to know?"
She looked as though she were balancing ledgers in her mind. "Yeah. You sure you don't want a whiskey?"
"No, thank you."
She sighed. "You want to know why Silver Fang is tampering with dungeon Cores?"
"I've said as much."
"Watch your tone, kid."
"Easy, Dan. It's fine. You want the truth? Silver Fang has no idea what they're doing."
That didn't make any sense. "I don't buy that."
She shook her head. "Whether you buy it or not, it's the truth. Silver Fang is the top adventuring party in the Empire. This makes them tools for the government, politically speaking. We take orders. You can give a mage a long document of mathematical framework for a spell and they can cast it without knowing what it does."
"That goes against magic requiring intention."
"You intend for the math to work."
I guessed that was fair enough. "So Silver Fang doesn't know. But you do."
"Not really. Only recently learned that the spell was even tampering with the Cores. So I've been working on it."
"And Varkas has no idea? Or Veyla?"
"Not in the slightest. But disobeying orders from the government is a major crime for people of our standing. Veyla gets the math. Casts the spell. Asks no questions. Like a good dog should."
That landed like a bomb. Silver Fang being a tool rather than a conspirator reframed everything I thought I knew.
She continued. "The Silk Runners actually only have the intel on the sabotage thanks to your team, Callister. You have our thanks."
"I'd like more than thanks."
"Did we not already repay that favor with intel?"
"Feels like a pretty big favor."
She paused again, observing me. "True."
She shifted in her chair, draping both of her legs over one armrest. "Fine. You told us about the ancient magic, the buried reports. We told you about the person in power giving the orders. Unprecedented government access. A new dungeon in the Pale Wastes. We have names now."
"Really?"
"Mhm."
"Well don't keep me in suspense, Nicks."
She smirked. "You're funny…Eversley LeGrange. By day, a simple statesman. By night, cunning manipulator. He's working on something regarding the dungeons that has roots in every nation on the continent. Roots deep enough to mean they've been growing for a very long time."
"That's all you know?"
"The man is good. Hides his trail better than we do. We have nothing directly connecting him to any of this, and we have no leads."
She moved her legs and sat properly in her chair for the first time, leaning forward. "That's why I wanted to meet with you."
I blinked. "I'm sorry, why?"
"You're interesting. Dan told me about your console."
Dan chimed in. "Interesting people have interesting consoles."
"Okay…so what does that have to do with anything?"
Stevie smiled, not the grin from earlier, not the business-like smirk. She reminded me of a viper, readying to strike its cornered prey. "You have a particular set of skills. Like I said, I did some digging on you."
I felt my jaw clench. This could end up being my chance to learn more about my amnesia. "Go on."
"We need proof of what LeGrange is up to. I'll spare you the details of it for now, but, should you accept the job I'm offering, I need you to steal from him."
I was beyond confused by this point. Why? Why me? They saw my console, but one weird skill didn't mean that much…
Did it?
I spoke slowly, choosing my words carefully. "So…I do this job for you…and what do I get?"
The smile grew wider. I felt my legs tense in anticipation of…something. "I tell you why I wanted you to do the job. What I know about you. Why you lost your memory. And why you have a unique skill on your console."
Unique? Like Hask's Tempest Striker? What did that mean? What did I do to acquire such a skill?
I had the answers at my fingertips. I just had to say yes. It almost didn't matter what I was agreeing to.
But then I thought about Hask. And Tessa. Alara and Kael. All the things I was already hiding from them. All the things they didn't know.
But they also deserved to know the truth about me. For better or for worse. "I'll think about it."
Stevie seemed satisfied with my answer. She nodded curtly. "Good enough for now. Just remember what I'm offering. I don't lie, and I don't bluff, Callister."
"I believe you."
"Good. Dan will show you out."
I left the Silk Runner hideout. I left the laundry. I made my way all the way back to the Guild Hall and into my dormitory, which was thankfully empty.
As soon as the door clicked shut, I collapsed against it, sliding to the floor. I felt a cold sweat breaking out on my skin and I saw my hand was shaking. "Holy fuck."