Rebecca was busy chewing away at a troublesome hangnail when a battalion of yellow-sashed town guards flocked into the mercenary guild hall. The guards immediately set about shooing people from the building.

“Hey, you’re not supposed to be here,” a mage said as one of the guards flipped the table he was eating at and grabbed him by the front of the robe.

“We’re in charge in this town, lad. We go where we please,” the sneering guard said, as he launched the mage towards the door.

Rebecca watched from behind her counter as the mercenaries were sent packing out onto the street. She briefly wondered if she should intervene, but decided that was probably above a receptionist’s paygrade.

When the last of the adventurers had been ousted, the guards formed two lines on either side of the entrance.

Before long, a gentleman of inhumanely large proportions stomped in, flanked by a pair of thugs. He wore a cloak of red velvet, with a drooping cowl that covered everything but his bushy beard. He nodded to one of his bodyguards, who beckoned over the sergeant of the watch and handed him a laden coin purse that sagged like a pair of horse’s testicles. The sergeant thanked the cloaked man profusely, and chased his men from the guild with a barked order.

When they were alone, the large man approached the reception desk, and placed ten bejeweled fingers on the counter.

“Oh, it’s you,” Rebecca said, rolling her eyes, “What do you want?”

“I’ve got a job for your lot,” the man rumbled in reply.

Rebecca slid a form across the desk, “Fill in the details at the top, here, and write the reward below. There’s a two silver admin. fee, and you’ll need to leave ten percent of the offered sum with us for security,” she recited with a stifled yawn.

“Do I look like a bleedin’ housewife? No, girl, I’m not posting a request for any pillock to answer. I’ve got a job I need done, and I need me some proper mercenaries to take care of it, and sharpish, ya hear? Got anyone like that?”

“You just chucked them all out.”

It was the grizzly man’s turn to roll his eyes, “Don’t make your problems my problems. Get me the best mercs you have and there will be a pretty penny in it for them, and for you. ‘Ere, where’s that albino peacock looking bloke I see prancing about? He’s supposed to be decent enough, ain’t he?”

“Archimedes of the White Fangs?”

“He good?”

“The best.”

“Good. I want him.”

“He’s out of town,” Rebecca said with a jaded smile.

The man growled from deep within his gut, “Fine, no matter. The next best then. Just make sure they’re reliable, and discreet,” he added with a thrust of his finger.

The second bodyguard slid a parchment across the counter, weighed down with a handful of gold pieces.

“You will get me the best, won’t you lass?”

Rebecca chewed her lip and slid the coins into her lap. She scanned the instructions on the parchment and clicked her tongue, “Absolutely. Nothing but the best for you, sir. Don’t worry, I have just the team in mind.”

---

Gabriel froze with his spoon halfway to his mouth as the door swung open and his colleagues entered. His porridge sloughed back into the bowl, spattering the front of his tunic.

“Done and done,” a dark-skinned man in royal-blue robes said, as he deposited a small pouch on the kitchen table.

The robe-clad man was accompanied by a dashing young archer, who sheepishly stood to the side. The archer was markedly uncomfortable, despite the fact, or perhaps because, they had just entered his mother’s home.

“What’s this, Vish?” Gabriel asked his comrade in blue, as he peered inside the large leather purse.

“That, good captain, is a job well done,” the man in robes answered.

Gabriel looked from pouch, to archer, to Vish.

“Where’s the rest of it?”

“That, good captain, is most of a job well done.”

“This is half, no, less than half-”

“-There were complications,” Vish interrupted.

Gabriel exhaled through his nose, “Appreciated, but I’m not sure we can claim the reward for this.”

“It’s got to be good for at least half the reward.”

“Well…”

“If a farmer delivers half a crop, they get half the pay.”

“Yes, but-”

“If a blacksmith produces half the horseshoes, they get,” Vish said the next bit very slowly, “half the pay.”

“Yeees.”

“So, when a mercenary delivers half of what they set out to get, they should get half the promised reward, right?” Vish pulled up a chair and leaned his feet on the table, close enough to Gabriel’s bowl that his porridge was seasoned by the mud from Vish’s boots.

Gabriel sighed, “Excellent logic as always, Vish, and you might even have a point. Half the number of pelts requested, half the herbs asked for, even half the contents of a missing keg! If it were any of those, then I might actually agree with you,” he picked up the pouch between thumb and forefinger, “but this is a hamster.”