Two perfectly rational beings walk into a room, or a bar. The riddler then asks the riddled: “what happens next?” To solve this riddle, one must consider every detail of every circumstance of this encounter and every motivation of the people involved, and then remove every application of the two onto the problem in question which is not absolutely and unwaveringly rational. When there is only a small pool of details and motivations, this is considered an incredibly difficult task. Applying more and more variables to the equation transforms this problem into an unsolvable one – layers upon layers of each rational being’s personal experiences congeal together into complex, unpeelable onions. This is what one must take into account when one considers that - much like in reality - the beings’ entire lives do not revolve around this riddle; outside armchair discussions, there exist no plausible solutions.

Flay’s awkward punches slowed until he was doing not much more than caressing the air to his sides. His neck remained in the woman’s arms for a few minutes longer to erase any trace of life; it was possible she missed his carotids. The man’s hands were rough, but lacked any distinguishing marks or scars – he was never an interrogator, much less a royal one.

She stashed his body underneath the guard cottage’s supports next to Short’s. Flay leaving the guards’ chambers wasn’t accounted for in Joakim’s descriptions – it’s possible, though unlikely, she was now compromised. Taking the two blackjacks, she approached the door, confirmed the inside was dark and raised her foot.

The door flew off its hinges and a sharp clattering followed its graceful flight from its frame. She waited.

The truth about these rational beings is truly quite simple – they’re as irrational as the normally irrational. When two are presented with what is even a mostly similar set of information, they can create for themselves two completely different onions; a single blemish on one fact can direct attention to another, which can, in turn, remove another fact from the equation, which in turn results in further deviations – a butterfly effect of sorts. Even considering all this, there exists a way for one to convince several scores of these rational irrationals to accept what is, in essence, a suicidal mission.

A door inside - presumably to the bedrooms - was opened by a bearded man in nightclothes. He already had a blackjack in hand – Speaker. Two more stood behind, lit by a lantern.

The tired guards’ lack of sleep was quickly countered by the adrenaline. They held their weapons with fury, with clear intent to maim and kill. She, on the other hand, held hers with precision.

A jump and a pirouette brought her to face Speaker, already charging. It also brought her blackjack to his jaw; he miraculously blocked the deadly impact with his arm. A loud crack echoed, then a scream. The second hit came from below, part of her next rotation. ‘Speaker’ collapsed, now silent. He had obtained a third bend between elbow and hand.

The labour camps were perfection. Perfection in the art of shattering human psyche. Anyone entering whole leaves broken. They become a living contradiction, finding more solace in the suicidal work they’re forced upon than in even the most minute resistance or thoughts of escape. The cold penetrates the little given clothes even in summer, the unyielding cycles of endless day and then endless night hammer down upon circadian rhythms and the meagre feed leaves most with aching stomachs constantly pleading for more. Their only pleasure is when the tasteless soup generously referred to as sustenance is poured thick; they all savour the little aroma and taste they can, for tomorrow… tomorrow it could be thin. The forests and plains of the taiga taunt with hopes for an impossible escape; there are no fences, for none are needed. It’s no surprise that only a mere handful of guards are required to keep this cycle of torment afloat. However, this strategy has far more reaching implications, particularly in the field of perfectly rational beings.

She stepped back to avoid the swing of the spiked blackjack, then - ignoring Nail - smoothly charged forward with a pirouette toward High. The dreadfully gaunt man was caught off guard. He raised his club to block, not realising he was defending against a feint; a swing again from a different direction and he crumpled.

The woman ducked and from behind a spiked baton arced over her head. Her hands wrapped around the swinging arm then pulled – driven by his own weight, the guard fell forward onto his back with a weighty thud. Helpless, he received an accurate strike to his chin.

In order to create consistent behaviours in these rational beings, the same principles must be applied. Starve them of information. Redefine their definitions of comfort and adjust their motivations to align with this task. Simultaneously overwhelm and underwhelm with exact copies of consistent information, engineered to create one and only one logical conclusion. Foster an irrational rationalisation of this suicidal task while convincing that escape from is impossible. Force their world to revolve around this one riddle and thus build their onion…

“…as you see fit,” she mouthed, almost unnoticeably.

“That was some very smooth fighting, if I say so myself.”

A man dressed in a full uniform leaned on the doorway, seemingly unarmed. His long, matted hair and beard were long unwashed, and a very noticeable stench of alcohol followed him.

With a reverse pirouette, her club whistled toward him. It halted within an inch of his face. She noticed his fist, now near her stomach, did the same. They jumped back, simultaneously.

“I wonder what a werewolf is doing killing guards in a prison camp… You are, after all, a lycanthrope? Vampires would have no need for escape since they have all the blood they could ever want, necromancers would have all the corpses they could ever want and… you definitely don’t look undead either…”

Another swing from her, and an effortless dodge from him.

“If you want to escape, I suggest you take a horse and ride as far as you would like – I won’t stop you.”

While saying this, he dodged two kicks and another swing.

“You see, I don’t care much for these compatriots nor for the prisoners – all I need to do is splash my clothes with whiskey every now and again. In return, I get an unending supply of blood and absolutely no attention. What else could I want?”

The woman continued her dance. Lacking emotion in her voice or face, she spoke.

“If you believe I will ever leave this room behind with a living vampire inside, you are simply naive. Creatures like you a canker and will continue to be nothing but a canker to this world. Do not trouble yourself in answering, or attempt to justify your existence, for you will meet your end here regardless.”

Without a pause, his arms folded into defensive stance as a dagger revealed itself in his hands.

“That was accurate,” he admitted, “but fighting a vampire isn’t as easy as you believe, especially for a human. If you’re planning to defeat me by transforming, you’re off by one day – the full moon is tomorrow.”

He dodged two swings and let the punch halt in front of his face.

“On top of this, we’re both cursed creatures. You will pass out of exhaustion much sooner than you will land a hit on-”

She landed a hit on him. Two of her fingers were now coated in fresh blood and the man’s eye became little more than red pulp.

“This is very interesting. What is your goal here?”

Seeing through her feint, he deflected her true attack. His dagger slid along the club and across her arm.

“Intriguing. The unusually succulent odour of the soup tonight… that was your blood.”

They parried each other’s swings in quick succession – the woman’s baton gained several deep gashes.

“I understand your plan now, but what is its purpose? As soon as the others recover from their initial amnesia and regain their memories, they will simply betray you - you know how vampires are. An army of them is fickle, and if you thi-”

He did expect her rotation to end with a kick. Its incredible strength reduced the man’s jaw to fragments and the tip of his tongue landed on the floorboards.

He froze for a single second, eye staring blankly into the ceiling, desperately fighting the body’s autonomous processes shutting his brain down. He tried tightening the grip around his dagger only to realise it was missing.

The man succeeded. He looked down into the cold, blank eyes of the woman. He could not speak, for his tongue was filling his lungs with blood – a temporary setback, he could drain it later. He saw a glint in the woman's hand.

His beard was shorter and wet with blood. His throat; it was cut.

Fifteen seconds remained of his life - he could feel both arteries losing blood.

He stood still, continuing to stare. Even in the light of the lantern lit by Speaker earlier, he could make out the face of the woman who killed him. A pale triangular face, green - no, green and yellow - eyes and narrow, slightly contorted lips. A small bit of black hair peeking from underneath her white cap.

He gurgled as his lips attempted to whisper a phrase. Then, he collapsed.

The woman slit the unconscious guards’ throats, then took the vampire's dagger and his enigmatic foot holster. She left the cottage and followed a familiar route, one engraved into her memory by the guards' whips and shouts, one she walked across exactly 46 times for 23 days.

At its end, a dwarven monolith stood alone in the centre of a field. It radiated both despair and disrepair, for the portcullis long lied on the grass around in fragments and the structure itself was tilted and partially sunken into the earth. What she had set in motion was impossible to stop, so the only way left for her to go was forward.

The vampiric guard's final words echoed in her skull.

Hypocrite.