Reaping The Rewards

Serenity wakes up from a good sleep, despite the bed smelling like stale cheese and feeling like it was under a wood saw. She quickly realizes her hand is being held. Glancing down to see Lyric passed out on the cold floor, her one arm pulled up butted up against the mattress, grasping her hand.

“That can’t be comfortable,” the young assassin says to herself. She slowly releases the hand, gets out of bed quietly, and Lyric starts to moan a bit. Serenity takes the wild elf, and with all her strength pulls her up and into the bed.

“Good a dream me have,” Lyric mumbles, in her broken common, rolls over and seems to have fallen fast asleep again.

Stretching and looking around Serenity realized she forgot to put the chair to the door last night. The young woman checks her wounds, and the shoulder is all but healed. Just a little tender. The chomp on her arm though is throbbing like a bitch.

She is looking around, gathering her stuff, then double checks it for anything missing. When satisfied, heads out the room and down to the bar room.

The main room is empty being so early, except for one chair in the back. There sits Baylor, looks like he has been up half the night and looks in your direction. “Oh, just… you,” he says, then winces in pain. He grabs a bottle and takes a deep drink.

“Mornin'” Serenity spits out hitting the bottom of the stairs, she looks around hoping someone else is here, but sadly not finding anyone. “You ok?” she asks the ruffian.

He is just glaring at her, “Yeah, fine. Great in fact. Never better!” He says, thick with sarcasm and anger, then stops eye contact.

Serenity now wishes she stayed in bed with Lyric, she shakes her head. “Oh? Never better huh?” she responds, going to the bar looking for the water barrel and if it has water in it. Her mouth feels like sandpaper, and last nights dinner seems to be making a home in her breath.

“Yeah, gold coins are shooting out my ass and my urine is top notch brandy!” He says with a little less confidence, shaking his head.

The young assassin chuckles a bit, not sure what to make of this exchange. With ease and skill, hops the bar and grabs a mug. Dips it in the water barrel and sniffs it. Doesn’t smell bad, so she takes a deep drink.

Serenity glances back and smirks, “Well remind me to not drink any Brandy in this place,” she retorts playfully.

She then takes one of the rags, that are less dirty and she pours some spirits on it. The assassin then wraps her bite mark with it. At first it felt good but then the alcohol hit it and she whimpers a bit with the pain. The young woman takes a deep breath, and turns back to the bar.

By then Baylor has an angry scowl on his face, slams the bottle he was drinking down hard. His voice has a tinge of slur too it, and Serenity realizes he must of been drinking a good hour before she came down.

“Listen, I haven’t worked for years wiff Wilder, kissing ass, putting my life on the line to have some cute-zee woman walth in here and take over like she owned the plathe. You have Wilder hooked and I am not going to thstand around and lose what I have worked for!” He finishes with glossy eyes and a red face.

He stands up, wobbles a bit, then the young thug sits back down

“Oh” she replied shocked, not sure how to respond. “I understand, though he dragged me along to meet this reaper clerk guy because of no other reason than I was awake. After that, I don’t have a clue as to why he would have wanted me to go to Swanley,” she mumbles leaning back against the small counter behind the bar, speaking the truth.

The man gets up angrily again, but this time he winces a bit and stops. “Ahh, dammit. That fucking hag got me good.”

Serenity wheels around the bar, “can you stop this little tirade long enough for me to look at your wounds?” the young woman says, raising an eyebrow.

Baylor stops and is staring at her, he takes a deep breath. “What the hell would a shnot nosed little girl know about woundsh?”

Tilting her head a bit, giving the half drunk man a smirk, “well, this snot nosed little girl, healed this wound all by her lonesome,” she retorts, pulling her armor the best she could to one side and down a bit revealing her now healed, but still visible scarred area of her shoulder. In doing so, her breasts are getting pushed up and a bit of cleavage forms.

It didn’t take long before he was staring at her cleavage. “yeah, whatever,” he says taking off his shirt to have her look at the wound.

The young woman after readjusting her armor and rolling her eyes, looks over the rake marks left by the Hag and she winces a bit; they do not look good. Still oozing and in some parts, bleeding. He did not take the time to do anything with it and it showed. She was surprised a bit as to how small this man is, almost as small as she is.

The Young girl remembers reading: With any wound, keep it clean, and to remove possibility of infection use an alcohol based substance that will assist with that. Keep it bound and keep it dry.

Serenity pushes him back on a stool and looks at him, “this is going to hurt, but we have to, otherwise this is going to get infected or worse…”

His eyes bulge a little “worsh? Whatcha’ talking about?”

The young woman has already started wiping the wounds off, making him wince a few times, “this wasn’t some dog or a weapon making this wound, this was a hag and who knows where her hands, or claws have been,” she says driving home the point.

“Shon of a…” he just replies, clenching his jaw as he is attended to by this girl. He glances her over, her hair is clean and almost perfect, her skin smooth and silky, she has these amazing eyes that just light up a room and her smell, it’s near intoxicating. Plus, from what he can tell has a banging body underneath that armor. His thoughts drift to the exchange Lyric and she had at the staircase, wondering what else they were up to. He shakes his head to get out of the zone he was in and starts to deal with the pain instead, he takes another gulp of the bottle.

“This is going to really hurt,” she says, dunking some of the rag she was using into the bottle he was drinking from, most likely dwarven spirits. She starts to dab the wound and at first he was fine, but then the liquid sunk in and he almost growled, pulling back with wide eyes.

“whatsh the fook?” he yells a bit starting to slur more, looking down at his wounds, then back at her.

Serenity gives him a “really” look and he takes a few deep breaths, his face is flushed. Then he leans back over and she finishes cleaning it.

“I have to find a clean cloth, hold up,” she says, meandering off. After a minute of searching the young assassin comes back with someone’s shirt, that she is carving up with her little daggers. With those she finishes wrapping the wound up.

“Keep it clean, keep it dry and you should be fine,” she says, finishing and grabbing his shirt to put back on. Handing it to him, she couldn’t help but have a little smirk.

He nods, grabs the shirt and puts it on. Baylor gets up and walks past her and for the stairs, with the slightest of a wobble. He stops, not looking back, but mumbles, “thank you.” Then heads up the stairs for what she figures will be a headfirst dive into a bed and him passing out.

The rest of the morning is quiet, as the young girl finds some questionable rations to eat, downing it with some “almost” clean water. Eventually it turns to mid morning, the light starting to make it’s way into the pub, a few people passing by and some of Wilder’s people filtering down the steps, obviously hungover.

Wilder comes out from the back, bright eyed and bushy tailed. Rubbing his hands together, he heads behind the bar, grabs a bottle of some awful looking liquid inside, takes a gulp and cringes. “Oh, that is nasty,” he mumbles, puts it back and finishes off with a mug in the water barrel and him guzzling it; a stream of the water running down the side of his face as he was drinking to fast. He wipes his face with his sleeve and looks over the room.

“Time to go collect our bounty, this hag head is not potpourri you know!” He yells with a museful tone, looking to the young woman.

Wilder walks for Serenity and the girl is looking around the room for Baylor, but presumably he is still asleep or passed out.

“Let’s go sweet cheeks,” he says without thinking, then stops, glances back, “or I am sorry, Serenity, if you like…” with a smirk on his face, bowing a bit in playfulness.

Serenity looks at him, “shouldn’t you take Baylor, I mean he is your main guy.”

He stops looks around the room and then the old thief looks back to her, “I don’t see him down here, you snooze, you lose, is what they say, or I think they do,” he stops, pondering, “think they still say that?”

She just shakes her head, hops off the stool she was sitting on and heads for the door.

The two of them head out. Wilder grabs the sack that was stored in a barrel outside his pub. “Oh man, this smells, who knew a hags head would be so…”

“Smelly?” Serenity retorts with a small giggle, “yeah, who knew?”

They are walking out onto the slick cobblestone, the sky is clear and the sun is just peaking over a few buildings in front of the Inn. It is a bit cool, and the winds seem to be pretty calm right now. A few residents walking by with baskets, a few pulling a cart of what looks like produce.

“What a wonderful day, isn’t it?” Wilder kind of exclaims.

The young woman, glances over to the old thief, nods her head in agreement. Her thoughts quite mixed right now, a thief, who takes pride in doing work, doing jobs. Such an odd complex person he is turning out to be.

The two walk towards the Reaper and Blade, Guild, Est. 288 3E – Building. Upon entering there are three people in front of the man they dealt with before. They are finishing up a conversation. As the men leave they look Wilder and Serenity over and shake their head.

Serenity, knowing enough to look the men over, saw a symbol on one of the bags. It is the same one that is on the building outside.

Wilder, with a bit of wider eyes now, walks to the desk, “friends of yours?” he says playfully to the man in glasses behind the desk.

“Uh, yeah, they were from the Reaper and Blade,” Serenity says, almost without thinking, still looking back at them leaving.

The old thief turns to her and smiles, “how did you… oh, never mind,” he finishes out, shrugging his shoulders.

The man with glasses nods to her thoughtfully, “yes they were, confirming the fact that Thorn Gate has been over-run, the war is over,” he says.

“Old news my friend,” Wilder says with a bit of whip to it, then looking down at the table with sealed scrolls.

The man known as Alfredo, is grabbing the 10 scrolls on his table, all sealed by the Reaper and Blade, and putting them to the side.

Wilder’s eyes bulge seeing the scrolls, and he even drools a little, “Is that…?”

Alfredo puts out his hand and gives the old thief a look, “let’s just deal with what is ahead, you are back awfully quick, was the job too much for you?” he starts to say with a sarcastic tone but takes a wiff and looks at the sack Wilder is holding.

“Great, great, I say, leave it in the bin outside dammit!” the old man says standing up and pointing to the door with a bit of anger, “you are going to get juices and such all over the floor!”

Wilder stands a bit straighter, frowning, walks to the door opens and leaves.

Serenity looks at this Alfredo person who glances at her, smiles softly and mumbles, “Animax knows what you are doing with him, poor dear…” then mumbles something about the smell and stains never come out.

He double takes as the young assassin glares at him, a little miffed that he is presuming things.

Barging back in the room, the old vet walks over to Alfredo, “We killed the hag, well, we killed two actually… our reward fine sir!”

The older man gets up, walks to his safe, fiddles around with it, opens it and grabs a pouch and a note. Turns, walks back and plops the bag down on the table, “well, you did good work. Swanley’s Lead Stewart was pleased, the town seemed to be now at ease,” he finishes opening up the note.

Alfredo places the note down, “40 gold as promised and they threw in 10 more since you did such a thorough job,” he says with a huff, and continues, “about time you got back on track.”

He grabs the bag, then signs off on the note, “you are not shitting, we had a string of bad luck for a while,” Wilder says gruffly, handing the bag back to Serenity who takes it and looks in.

“Did the town add the 10 gold or did Reaper and Blade?” the young woman asks, looking back at the man with the glasses.

He smiles, “we did my dear, our client is very happy and we make sure we pass that along,” Alfredo says, in a condescending voice like he was talking to a five year old.

Serenity shakes her head, “am I missing something here?” she says suddenly feeling a little anger build up, “is there a problem with me?” She then glances over to Alfredo who’s eyes are starting to get bigger.

The man shrugs his shoulders, feeling uncomfortable, then pushing his glasses up his nose, “I just thought you were, you know…”

“What?” the young assassin says, starting to fidget with her karimbits, tucked in her bracers.

Wilder sees that and looks at her wide eyed, “it is just a misunderstanding, Serenity, I haven’t exactly been partnered up with, respectable people as of late. So it is an honest mistake ok?”

He then turns to Alfredo with a desperate look, “listen, she helped kill the creatures and track them down, without her I think I’d be a hags boy toy right now,” wilder says, then looking over to the scrolls, “she is one of my crew, not one of… those, ok?”

The girl looks over herself and wonders, “how would an armored woman, with weapons and no skin showing be considered that? If ‘that’ is what is being considered?” she thinks to herself, then shaking her head. By now she is all but done counting and there is 50 gold.

“It’s all here,” she says looking at Wilder who glances back at her with a surprised look, Serenity retorts, “what?”

The old thief gives her another look, “I trust them, you didn’t need to count the coins,” he says slowly shaking his head and looking back to the clerk.

Alfredo, now very flustered, puts the note in a drawer and gives Wilder an annoyed look, “well?”

The man who smells of pipe tobacco, dwarven spirits and sweat looks over to the scrolls, then back to the man with the glasses, “let me grab another job, what you say buddy!?”

Alfredo shakes his head, “I just got them in, I have no idea what they are for, so come back this afternoon when I have things organized.”

Wilder nods and turns to leave, stopping for a moment, “alright, but don’t be handing them all out before then, save us at least one! I am on a roll!”

Alfredo nods and looks annoyed. Mumbles, “roll? you completed one job in a year and a half, and its a roll?” He waves him off as he reaches for the scrolls to start going through them.

The duo leaves and heads back to the Waterlogged Dolphin.

Part Two

The rest of the morning moves pretty quickly, with Wilder still fawning all over Serenity and she is beginning to get annoyed with it.

“Here you deserve this,” Wilder says pushing 5 gold coins to the girl, smile across his face.

Serenity, not knowing what the next few days will bring, takes three of them, and pushes two back to him, “thank you, here is two back for your… I don’t know, hospitality and charming demeanor.”

Smiling wide, he lets out a laugh snapping up the other two coins. “Ever the charmer sweet chee… err, I mean Serenity,” catching himself this time.

Eventually Baylor found his way down and she made a conscious effort to be next to him for when Wilder starts to hover again. The man is still wincing a bit with his injuries, but his head seems to be the biggest problem. The young thug, drinks some water and then puts his head in his hands with a groan.

“Ready to go, my little Assassin?” Wilder says as he is heading for the door.

The young woman doesn’t move, just shakes her head and glances to Baylor.

Baylor, the right hand man of Wilder is looking down shaking his head and getting angry.

Wilder stops looks to him, shrugs his shoulders, “OK, then, both of you, come with me now, alright?”

“Let’s go,” Serenity says tapping Baylor on the shoulder, who still does not look too pleased with the situation, and a little green around the edges.

The trio arrives at the Reaper and Blade building and they walk in to see three other men standing around looking through scrolls. All three look over and they get a big smile on their face, “wilder, son-of-a-bitch, I never thought they would of let you back in,” the one bigger man says walking over and giving the old thief a hearty handshake.

Wilder a bit wide eyed smiles back, a forced one, “well, I guess miracles do happen,” he retorts looking past seeing the scrolls being devoured by the people in the room.

Serenity, almost completely unnoticed guides her self on the opposite side of the room, slides by a few tables, dips under one and ends up to the side of the desk of Alfredo. The older man, now flustered with all the people in his office, glances over and gives her an odd curious look while pushing his glasses up his nose.

The young rogue, reaches for a scroll, and looks to the clerk, “may I?”

He nods, with a soft smile and then turns back to the men. But it did not go unnoticed.

“Hey, little girl, this is guild business, you do not…” a husky foreboding man turns to Serenity, a bit of anger in his eyes seeing practically a kid looking through the items.

She turns, interrupting and meets his gaze, not flinching, “I do, thank you very little,” the young woman says, looking the man over, “you over grown oaf.”

In many of her teachings and readings, she knows enough to stand tall, don’t back down, keep eye contact and reciprocate their tone back to them. Again, her teachings were dead on.

The large man, stands up a bit taller, eyebrow raised. A few people glance over and chuckle, but the man just nods and turns back to Wilder.

Serenity opens a scroll and is looking at it, “a sahuagin? Looks to be a gaggle of them?” she says to herself with a chuckle, “they do not have gaggles, who writes this nonsense.”

Alfredo slowly looks over to the girl, eyebrow raised, “excuse me? What do you know of creatures,” he says with a condescending undertone.

Tired of this old mans bullshit, she slams the scroll down on the table, making everyone glance over. “A Sahuagin, or better known as Sea Devils are known to gather in ‘throngs’ not gaggles. The group usually consists of some bottom feeders and a powerful leader, and as I recall it is called the Baron. They like to scout the shore line for victims, and it is usually in the same area as they build a underwater cliff of sorts allowing them to hide, come out of deep water and hit the shore fairly quickly. It has been reported it is a part of their culture and a beloved sport to hunt and kill. They usually have make shift raw weapons, tridents, spears and pole arms but rarely any ranged weapon….”

Serenity looks about, stops talking because the room is dead quiet, everyone now staring at the smaller pretty girl. Baylor is rolling his eyes, letting out a sigh, Wilder has a crooked smile and a proud look on his face.

Alfredo looks about the room and confirms that what she was saying was correct as the other men, are smiling wide and nodding their head.

The young assassin, now with wide eyes looks back to the scroll, a bit embarrassed. “Oh, and don’t bleed too much around them, tends to put them in a frenzy,” she finishes off with a small smirk on her face.

Squatting down, and giving this beautiful girl a look over, the large man that at first scolded her about the scroll, now is thoroughly impressed, “did you just read a book about them recently, little girl?” he says giving her a warm look.

She scoffs, “No I know a lot about creatures, among other things,” she says glancing up to the charismatic large man who is staring at her, “like kicking large men in the balls will drop them like a 20 pound sack of potatoes…”

This man almost falls over, letting out the loudest laugh, as the room is filled with chuckles and the nods of their heads.

“That’s my girl,” Wilder says smiling wide.

Hearing that Serenity is unsure she liked it, I am no ones girl, she thinks to herself, well maybe my guardians, but no one else.

Alfredo, yet again embarrassed and put in his place by this girl, glances over with a bit of restraint, “well then, you just inherited that scroll young lady, I will assign it out to Wilder,” he finishes trying to get her out of his office before she embarrasses him or anyone else again.

After a few minutes of questions aimed at Wilder about the girl, while Serenity herself was ignored, the wiley old thief makes his way out of the building.

“I feel like I have to take a bath now,” the older man says with a museful tone, “you sure know how to get attention don’t you?”

A bit surprised at the comment, and realizing it was kind of true, she has a feeling sink deeper into her stomach, “I am bringing far too much attention to myself, I wouldn’t last a day as an Assassin, jebus” she says to herself with a bit of anger.

The two make it into the pub, wilder with scroll in hand now. Glancing down he notices that his little companion is quiet and she has what he likes to call, fart face.

Baylor looks at the two, shakes his head and walks for the stairs. He was not looking good in the reaper building, so it makes sense he needs to take another nap.

Serenity gets stopped by Wilder, “thoughts? Are you worried about these, what did you call them sausages?”

The girl gives Wilder a look, eyes growing wider, a smile starting to form and she couldn’t stop herself from chuckling.

“Sahuagins, and we better do some research on them so we know exactly what we are up against,” she states, glancing back down suppressing another giggle.

Wilder then mentions something about a room at the Reaper and Blade that has books and such about creatures and monsters. He kind of regrets that, as Serenity starts to bug him about going there.

The old thief, walks across the room, behind the bar and grabs a bottle of what appears to be brandy. Pours the two a shot and he lifts it up, “my dear, you have been a godsend, saved my little operation here, because now I don’t have to steal or pillage anymore… we can just work our jobs.”

Again a smile forms across her face, she shakes her head, “I will pass on the Brandy, but thank you…” the young girl says, remembering what Baylor said earlier.

Wilder shrugs his shoulders, downs both shots, gasps a bit from the burn and says “your loss sweetcheeks… err, dammit, I mean Serenity.”

Mid-day moves to afternoon and after some bugging from Serenity, Wilder takes her, Baylor and Lyric back to the Reaper and Blade where there is a room filled with books about Monsters, Creatures, People, Weapons and many other things.

Alfredo not thrilled to see them, but allows them to the back room anyways; Serenity’s face lights up with a huge smile. Looking at all the old tomes, books and scrolls she almost lets out a little squeal. Not a huge collection, but one that the young woman never saw before in one place.

She instantly starts from one end and looks over the collection slowly and methodically.

Baylor plops down in a chair, that puffs out some dust from lack of use, coughing, “son of a bitch, why are we here, lets just go kill those things,” he says with a bit of frustration. He jumps a little when a book gets thrown in his lap. He frowns and looks down to it, and the book was titled “Hags and Witches.”

The small man, glances up to Serenity who now has a small smirk on her face, trying not to laugh. He picks it up, slams it on the table next to him.

After a while Serenity finds her way to the middle of the room with a large table. On the table is a open wood box, that has papers in it. She glances through and again she gets giddy. “Filing system, perfect!” she exclaims as everyone else kind of shrugs their shoulders, still meandering about.

After a few minutes of looking through the paper and then looking around the book shelves, she has pulled a few books and has them on the table. “The only books on Sahuagins, and sea creatures,” the young woman states giving Baylor and Wilder a look.

They shrug their shoulders a bit, and Lyric comes over to sit with Serenity when she found a spot.

“I guess I will have a look,” wilder says grabbing one of the books that looked more like a journal than anything.

Baylor leans back in the somewhat comfy, dusty chair and starts to drift off to sleep.

A few hours roll by and Serenity has exhausted the literature and information in the room. With a few ideas, they head back to the waterlogged dolphin.

“We will head out high sun tomorrow, and scour that area” Baylor says with some authority.

Wilder stops, looks at Serenity as to ask her if that was good or not. The small thug glances over.

“Forget it! Do whatever the fuck you want!” Baylor barbs, storming back into the tavern.

“What?” the old thief says, giving the two girls a look and a shrug of his shoulder.

Part Three

The afternoon creeps on for Serenity. Her thoughts are of the “sausages” as they like to call them and how to kill them. “Maybe I will stay hidden and creep on them, but they will most likely be in water or sand… maybe I can…” she stops, then getting frustrated that she is unsure how to deal with them.

The young Assassin makes her way over to Lyric who is cleaning mugs, “I think those are the first time those mugs have been cleaned,” She muses to her now, little girlfriend.

She nods her head, seems confused a bit looking at the mug then turns it and looks under it.

Serenity shakes her head, pulls up a stool and sits. Lyric grabs her a mug of water and places it on the bar. Serenity then takes her hand caresses it and smiles. The wild elf swashbuckler woman, blushes and walks away finishing up the half-assed cleaning she was doing.

Wilder comes out from the back, drink in his hands, reading what seems to be one of the journals from the Reaper and Blade. Serenity’s eyes light up seeing that.

“You little thief, you took that from the Reaper didn’t you?” Serenity says playfully, “learning something about them sausages?”

He gives her a thoughtful look, “I can read,” Wilder playfully barks back, “any idea on something we can do to get a leg up? Or fin up, or whatever.”

Serenity jumps off the bar stool and walks to the old thief, “other than cutting off their heads…” she starts giving him a look, “I keep coming back to blood.”

Wilder goes behind the bar, book still in hand and is looking for a bottle of spirits. “Blood huh, makes them frenzy, could be dangerous…” he says grabbing a bottle and now is looking for a clean glass.

The young Assassin gets a smile on her face and nods to him, “impressive, you are taking this somewhat serious.”

The old thief pours himself a shot, pulls it back, slams the glass back on the bar and hisses a bit from the bite of the drink.

He leans close to the young woman, “I can’t be caught up in what happened to me last time, we were barely scraping by. So if reading a few books will help me, or I mean, us, accomplish the task, then so be it.”

She nods and smiles again. “Maybe we get a vial of blood, toss it in a different part of the water to confuse them? I am not sure if they would randomly frenzy or if they would head in that direction because they smelled it.”

The man, smelling of cigar, sweat and now dwarven spirits gives her a dignified look, grabbed the bottle and glass making a clink sound and heads for the back of the bar again, “I will let you know if I find anything, dear Serenity.”

With a small smirk, the girl just shakes her head and looks back to the bar where Lyric is organizing some plates and silverware. “Going to be a long day I am afraid…” she mumbles to herself.

The afternoon turns to evening and that only ends with some questionable food, and the band of mercenaries getting drunk again. As the night sky comes too, Serenity grabs the book that Wilder took and heads upstairs to go over it again, and maybe find something she might have missed.

She is sitting on the bed when the door goes to open, and the chair does it job, stopping it and it makes a screech sound, until it hits a offset board in the floor.

“Occupied,” Serenity says, then chuckles figuring they might not know what that means, “someone already in here, awful early for you guys to be crashing,” she continues, looking out the window, just past her candle to see it can’t be more than 10:00 PM.

In a muffled tone, she can hear Lyric “It be me Serenity, Lyric, friend or more,” she stumbles through her words a bit.

The young woman smiles, closes the book and opens the door. The wild elf comes trotting in, and looks around the room, “alone you?”

Serenity then closes the door and puts the chair back up to it. “Yes Lyric, all alone. Just reading the Sahuagin book,” she says jumping into the bed, then holding it up for her to see.

After a few awkward minutes, Serenity breaks the silence, “what is it Lyric? You seem preoccupied.”

The wild elf looks down at herself, and looks around, then back to the young assassin, “Octopus I am?” she says raising an eyebrow.

With a big smile growing on her face, she pats the bed for Lyric to sit next to her, “no hun, just get over here and we can go over this book together.”

Lyric takes off her half armor and pants and jumps into the bed with nothing but an overshirt and some crudely made panties.

Their eyes meet, and Serenity can’t ignore the feelings she has for this wild elf, it is so new, exciting and giving her feelings she has never felt before. She was battling on the inside right now, trying to stay true to what her guardian taught her; be quiet, stay hidden and don’t let anyone know who you are. But this group with Wilder. Then there is Lyric; she is so soft, her lips are amazing and her personality is just so damn cute. It is a mixed bag for the young woman as she tosses the book to the ground.

Serenity leans in and Lyric does as well. Their lips connect, and they begin to make out on the bed. After about a half hour, Serenity pops off the bed, panting, sweating a bit and wide eyed. Her shirt half down her body, one of her breasts hanging out.

Lyric leans up and looks over, wiping her mouth from the long session of kissing, “ok, you do?”

Those words made the young woman giggle and she turns around, “Lyric, I have never been, with… anyone like, well, this,” as she is pulling her shirt back up around her shoulders.

Trying to figure out a way to communicate with Lyric a little better, then comes to one word, “virgin,” she says pointing at herself.

That word she knew, as the wild elf sits farther up in bed, a bit wider eyes, “oh, oh, not virgin,” she says pointing at herself.

“Just want to take things cautiously is all, take it slow,” she says giving Lyric a look.

She smiles and nods her head, then Serenity jumps back in bed and they snuggle for a short time. It wasn’t long before the young assassin leans over and blows out the candle.

The morning comes far too quickly for Serenity, and she pries herself out of bed. Lyric was wrapped around her, now fully naked. She looks down at the wild elf and chuckles, “when did she get naked?”

As every other morning she heads down to the barroom floor, fully geared and ready to go. No one is up yet. She takes a sniff of herself and now wishes there was a decent bathroom in this place that wasn’t attached to Wilders room.

She heads outside to get some fresh air and see the weather. Looks like it is going to be nice, she thinks to herself, though the air feels pretty heavy. She turns to go back in feeling good about today. Hell, even Wilder was reading some books.

The morning moves on and more people start filing down and into the bar room, hungover like usual.

Wilder comes ripping out of the back room, bright eyed and bushy tailed. A woman who was barely covered, curves on curves walks past the thief, smacks his ass and walks out the door.

“All is right with the world,” Serenity mumbles, then glancing up to see Baylor coming down with a scowl on his face, “yup, all is right in the world,” she repeats herself looking at the short thugs expression.

After some rations were ate, water guzzled, Wilder, Baylor and Lyric are ready to go. Serenity was sharpening one of her daggers.

“Time to go kill some, what were they called?” Wilder says glancing over to Serenity.

“Sahuagins,” Lyric says, plainly and still moving towards the door.

The young assassins eyes bulge for a second and she smiles, “that’s, exactly correct, Lyric!” she says excitedly.

Moving through the City, the young woman looks around. A mix of new buildings that are to the outer portion of the small city, is a different feel than the ones that are old and worn towards the middle. The weather seems to be cooperating, cloudy, a bit muggy but nothing unusual for this time of year. They walk through the gates, to their horses and head north and along the shoreline. Serenity jumped up with Lyric as they rode. The landscape is somewhat beautiful, even with the cloudy weather. Long sandy shore, crashing waves and a subtle beach sounds that seem to relax everyone.

Riding to a cluster of trees, the group dismounts and ties up the horses. The clouds break a few times, allowing for the sun to beam through now and again.

“People far down sand,” lyric says pointing north, tying her horse up, “can see smoke, yes?”

Wilder walks a bit out of the tree cluster and looks, squints and nods his head, “dammit Lyric, you have great eyes.”

The wily old thief looks around and there is really no cover. Some sand dunes, a large rock system that sits far off the shoreline, a cluster of trees and bushes here and there. “Dammit, no where to really get close, at least not without them noticing us.”

“I didn’t think these, sausages knew how to cook, or anything,” Baylor says tying off his horse.

Silence falls across the group, all eyes on the short man, he looks up, “wat?!”

Wilder sighs, “If you would of read anything on them, you would know they don’t cook their food, they eat it raw… so your guts would be warm and slimy going down their throat..”

Lyric cringes and shakes her head.

Baylor now getting red faced, just walks out farther to get a better look, “fine, fine. They are a good 500 yards away, we can probably close in another 100-150 without getting into a ranged attack.”

The group heads for the fire, and as they get closer it appears to be three people, decently armed and geared up with what appears to be a young girl. A few horses, tied up to some trees that are presumably theirs.

“I don’t believe it,” Wilder says, getting closer and then picking up the pace a bit, “I haven’t seen him in years!”

Serenity holds back a little, “uh, we may not want to be moving too quickly, and, well, ok, then, we are doing this…” she trails off, getting her weapons ready shaking her head, oddly, not surprised.

In just a few moments Wilder is hugging a man who also got up and head towards the group. A younger girl, then embraces Wilder, much to his dismay, though he is trying not to show it.

Another man gives Wilder a warriors handshake. The old thief waves the group over. He introduces everyone, and they find out this is old friends of Wilder, possibly even family, though he is not going into it too much.

Serenity reluctantly smiles and waves a bit, she is keeping her eyes across the shoreline remembering these Sahuagins attack quick and fiercely.

Then she looks them over. One of the men, standing, eating some jerky, seems to be a mercenary of sorts. In mixed up armor ranging from leather to scale. He looks ridiculous, but is has a monster of a morning star on his belt. The man talking with Wilder is much more organized, darker plate breast armor, matching greeves, the whole set. The younger man, looks to be in a matching set of studded leather, also very organized. Then she notices the blood on them and what appears to be parts of something on the mans morning star. The younger one even has a bandage around his forearm.

After a few minutes of conversation, the older of Wilders friends gives the young woman who keeps scanning the shoreline, hovering around her weapon, a look, “Serenity is it? What is it you are looking for?”

She gives Wilder a look and shrugs her shoulders. Not wanting to give away anything, but she has a good idea the old thief will spill… and she was not wrong.

“Just a job we got from the guild, some sad hogs, or sausages, or something I can’t pronounce,” he says chuckling a bit.

The man turns to his friend with a smile on his face, “you mean the Sahuagins we just killed, that are buried over by the rocks there?” Pointing in the direction of one of the larger clusters of rocks and stones.

Wilder’s shoulders sink, and he shakes his head, “wait, what? Dammit, yeah, probably those.” He slaps his thigh a bit, and grunts.

“Yeah we had some of our residents who had a close call with them, and we figured that wouldn’t be the last of them,” the older man says to Wilder, turning back and sitting on a portable tree stump, “so I grabbed Draken here and we made quick work of them.”

The younger man, named Draken, looks at the four of you, scoffs a bit, “yeah, short work. Winces a bit with his forearm wrapped. That big one was a bitch.”

“Four arms, yeah no shit,” the man retorts back, giving Wilder a curious look, “so I am guessing, you’re working jobs again?”

He nods. The old thief looks to the group, discouraged, “well, we will have to let them know its been taken care of. Hopefully they will have a job left when we get back.”

Serenity, has an idea, and it seems pretty obvious, so she is hoping for the best. She flushes a bit hoping Baylor will tell his boss what she was thinking. After a short time she stands there staring at the group, wide eyes.

Baylor, sees this, clenching his jaw, “what is it, Serenity,” speaking through his teeth, “what does the golden child have to say now?”

Everyone’s eyes turn to the young woman, who is starting to flush more.

Serenity lets out a loud sigh. “Just go dig one up, cut off the head, go back to old Alfredo and claim the reward. No where in the contract does it say how the creatures should be killed as long as they are taken care of,” she continues only to get interrupted by a now smiling, bright eyed Wilder.

“Holy shit, you are right, as always!” The old thief looks to his friend and he nods to him with a smirk.

The man, puts his hand on the thief’s shoulder, “help yourself my man, we aren’t going to do anything with them.”

Wilder grabs Baylor and heads over to the horses. After a minute of digging through the bags he grabs a smaller shovel. “Time to start digging my boy!” he says loudly slapping Baylor on the back. The old thief turns and heads back to the group.

Baylor stands there, shovel in hand, as red faced as one can be. Slowly and deliberately walks over to the large rock formation looking for the buried bodies. Lyric then walks over to Baylor and starts to help, they are switching on and off using the shovel.

Wilder’s friend is giving Serenity a long look, of curiosity and wonder. Probably wondering why the hell she is with Wilder.

After about an hour the two return, sweaty, dirty with a bit of blood on them. Bag in hand, Baylor still seething about what transpired.

Serenity avoided eye contact and takes a deep sigh, I think maybe I am wearing out my welcome here, she thinks to herself.

Wilder says good bye to the group they met, gave the young girl an extra hug and the group heads for their horses.

“Good thinking Serenity,” Wilder says smiling wide, “I told them to keep mum about killing them, just in case anyone came looking or asked questions.”

Baylor, ahead of the group already handed the bag off to Lyric and jumps on his horse. He then spurs it on and rides off very fast in a gallop.

Serenity stops the thief as Lyric continues walking, “Wilder, I think we should talk…”

End Chapter