The swordsman quickly stashed the sack into his backpack before they stepped into the sunlight, quickly scanning the street as if looking for something. In moments, his eyes locked to the door of a building just across the street, a makeshift wooden sign hung above the doorway signaling that it was an inn. The building bore many scars, from bullet holes to gashes in the brickwork, even a boarded-up, presumably broken window.

As they made their way towards it, they heard a surprising amount of noise from within. Zelsys wondered why this one building was still in use, despite the damage - had this place been at the center of whatever conflict struck Willowdale?

The answer she sought came quickly and simply when they entered through that door, and the smells of an inn slammed into her nose like a wild bull. Cheap ale, cheap food, and body odor. they remained almost unnoticed, having entered through the side door - whose hinges did not creak, whose mechanism did not make loud clacks, and which Makhus closed shut with nary a noise behind them.

Only two men sitting at the bar took notice, both of them at least in their fifties.Though they each shot Zelsys a lecherous stare they quickly returned to their drinks, and in moments, the group found themselves a vacant table off to the side. Lacquered wood furniture - the next step up just above the bare minimum, still not exactly the height of quality.

When she took a seat, Zelsys’s chair creaked under her apparently disproportionate weight, if the swordsman’s previous remark was anything to go by. He hefted the sack of gelt out of his backpack, alongside a few smaller, empty pouches, looking to each of the three in turn, ending on Zelsys.

“Y’got us ‘cross the border,” he said flatly. “Stake yer claim.”

He trusted her enough to just lay the offer out, no implication of attached strings in his tone. not just him, but all three of them, they all looked to her with not a shred of distrust or doubt. At that moment, she made a decision. She would return the three Ikesians’ trust.

“Thirty gelt right now and five percent of all your profit from alchemical products going forward,” she said.

Makhus met her with “That’s ridic-”

“Under the condition that, between beast-slaying contracts, I not only try to teach you Fog-breathing, but also let you try to figure out how I function, because frankly? I’m not sure myself. Consider the five percent cut hazard pay.”

Befuddlement froze the swordsman’s face, his brow furrowed and he stuttered out just a short-lived “Eh?”

“I am neither a fugitive, nor a treasure hunter, or a scavenger,” she said in as quiet a voice as she could, leaning forward.

“My earliest memory is waking up in a tank full of Viriditas inside some kind of bunker,” she said, omitting substantial chunks of the truth. “When we first met, the things I had with me were the only things I could find in there.”