This is Doctor Ramsey, making report 758-B... I don't know what I'm doing anymore.

I’m a good doctor, I know I am. I’ve saved lives and bettered countless others, and that was more than enough for me. I was the top of my field for years, called on from around the world to help with operations, giving lectures on innovative techniques.

But now I can’t sleep at night.

Ever since I got involved with this... Project Rewire, it’s haunted me. We get patients that come in from all sorts of situations, and some will have a small label on their entry form. Once I see it, I make whatever justifications I need in order to get a full work up done, then send it to the project.

Most of them, thankfully, come back negative. But the ones that come back positive, like that poor Andel person the other day...

They give me a message, and we need to convince them that it’s in their best interest to go into the system, but it has to be their idea. That part was made very clear after certain...incidents. we take them in to one of the operating theatres, sedate them and... god, I don't even know. I’m a good doctor, but I have no idea what the machines we connect to the patients do, or why we do it. But an hour later a collection ambulance will arrive and take them away, to “be treated at a different facility.” And that’s the last I see of them. I have no idea what happens next, they just come in, check a few numbers, and then take them.

I got up the courage, once, to ask the collector where they took them, what actually happens to these people. When he reached into his pocket instead of replying, I swear I thought he was going to kill me, but he just handed me a small video player, and left. When I opened it up, there was a video recording, from myself.

Apparently I’d asked this before, and someone had called the higher ups, and I’d been told everything, and then asked if I wanted to remember. I’d said no.

The next three videos played the same way, with me, staring at the camera, telling myself that its better that we don't know. I was in tears by the end, both me and the recording. I couldn’t bring myself to watch the next dozen videos on the device.

I don't know what I'm doing anymore, and I don't know why I'm doing it.

But I know I've gone too deep to stop.

End of report.

Walking up to the place he’d been directed to, Dave heard the bar before he saw it, the boisterous shouting bordering on screams at times. As he rounded the corner, there was a shattering of glass as a figure was thrown bodily through a window, to the cheers of drunken patrons inside his destination, the Swill.

This wasn’t some fancy inn with a warm atmosphere, where people would bring their family or a date for a pleasant evening. This wasn’t a place where you’d come for a meal that you’d savour. If you found yourself at the Swill, you were there to drink, or to fight.

Probably both.

Wedged in between a disused warehouse, and a tannery, it was as low a dive bar as you could get without actively digging a hole. From what the innkeeper had told him, a good chunk of the Swill’s coin went to reinforcing spells used to keep the tannery smells away, though they recouped most of the costs by selling the “used beer” back to them. As he walked through the door, he was overcome for a moment by noise and energy in the room. Everywhere he looked, people of every shape and size were fighting, and he noticed that they all seemed to be enjoying themselves. He saw an elf with a wild grin on their face as they brought a table leg down on the head of an orc who’d been trying to lift a dwarf by their beard. He saw a pixie swinging a beer mug bigger than they were at a minotaur who looked as though they were trying to stuff as many halflings as they could into the rafters, who in turn were pelting others with whatever they could reach.

In short, it was chaos, but somehow it was still contained. A couple of cloaked bouncers lingered around the place, and while they didn’t seem to care when someone got their teeth kicked in, if something turned serious, say, a kitsune who palmed a knife as Dave watched, they stepped in, hard. They barely had time to turn before the giant cloaked figure rushed up behind them and grabbed them by the collar. When the fox brought the blade down on the gripping hand, Dave expected to blood and fingers go flying. What he didn’t expect was for the blade to shatter, before its wielder was thrown through the window, colliding heavily with the frame on his way out. The figure noticed him staring from the doorway and waved his hand at him, the cloak slipping back to reveal a heavy gauntlet.

Wading through the brawl, the figure walked over to him, combatants being shoved out of the way as if they were weightless.

“Greetings friend, are you enjoying yourself?” they said, revealing themselves to be an elven woman.

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“I...What’s going on?”

“Never seen a bar fight?” she said, gesturing behind them.

“A few, but this is more...” he struggled for the right word.

“Friendly?”

“Yes! That’s the one. No one seems to be trying to really hurt each other.” He said as they side stepped a careening pair trying throw each other to the ground.

“That’s probably our doing.” She said, moving her cloak out of the way, revealing a full suit of silver platemail, and embossed on the chestplate was a stylized golden sun.

“Let me introduce myself. I am Lindel Solaris, knight champion of the Paladins of Dawn.” She said, offering a hand in greeting.

He shook it, wincing as she absentmindedly crushed his fingers slightly. “Dave Andel, homeless bard of nowhere. Wait, why is a paladin-?”

“Working at a bar like this? I get asked that a lot. Its good training for recruits, teaches them tactical awareness, dealing with different types of opponents, and how to take people down in a nonlethal fashion while avoiding escalation.”

“And I suppose the Swill doesn’t mind getting free security out of it.”

Lindel blushed slightly in embarrassment. “W-well, the orders coffers aren’t what they once were, since the last crusade was over two hundred years ago, so an income does help sure up our holdings.”

Dave let out a laugh. “Well, we all need to eat don't we?”

“All too true. Speaking of which, you mentioned something regarding homelessness?”

“I was hoping to maybe perform here in exchange for room and board. Do you know where the owner is?”

“A bard! It’d be lovely to have some music here, especially if you can be heard over the brawling. Come, the owner normally locks himself in his office at sundown to avoid the fights.”

Carefully they made their way through the masses, Lindel redirecting the occasional attacker with practiced ease, until they reached the other side of the room and went up a flight of stairs. The fighting seemed to stay on the main floor, except for those who kept running up to take flying leaps off the small balcony the overlooked the bar. There was a short hall with a few doors, one of which was much stronger looking than the others, with a large cast iron lock on it. Lindel rapped her gauntlet against it loudly.

“Gid! There’s someone here who wants to speak to you!” she shouted through the door before turning back to Dave. “I hope you get the gig, but I need to get back down to make sure no one gets hurt... badly.”

As she walked away, Dave could hear someone shuffling around in the room, before a series of clicks and chains sounded form behind the door as it cracked open.

“What do you want? Bars down stairs.” Said a high pitched voice, originated from a point lower than expected.

Gid turned out to be a gnome, barely two feet tall with a bright blue pompadour that brought him up to three, a thick pair of glasses obscuring most of his face.

“I was hoping to get a room-”

“Want a room then see the bar. Goodbye.” He said, beginning to close the door again.

“No, wait! You see, I’m a bard and-”

The door paused. “Ah, you want to stay for play? Hmm, don't have bards here, don't seem to last.” He said with a chuckle. “You a newcomer?”

“...I am. Is that problem?” He said hesitantly.

“Maybe, maybe not. You broken like the rest? Can’t play good?”

“I’m... working on it. I just need practice.”

Gid laughed. “Everything is practice, but is good that you are honest. Perhaps we have a place for you here, if you can handle it. You play first, then we talk. I let Lindel decide if you any good. And if you die... you newcomer! Walk it off! Agreed?”

Without waiting for a reply, the gnome slammed the door shut again, locking it up tight. Heading back down, he found the elven paladin dragging an unconscious orc outside, their head bouncing as it hit the cobblestones.

“That was quick! Get the job?” she asked cheerfully as she dropped her burden, leaning back to avoid a flying boot, quickly followed by its owner.

“Gid said he’d see, but that I’d need to perform first.”

“Trial by fire then. Well, you’re in luck, its quiet here tonight.”

Dave looked at the crowd. “You don't say.”

“It looks worse than it is. Not by much but it’s still true. Got your instrument ready?”

“I sing, though for a crowd like this I wish I’d had time to grab one.”

“Hmmm, well, you might be in luck.” She said before dragging him over to the bar. Reaching over it she pulled out a massive crate, shoving a pair of grappling goblins out of the way as she did so.

“What is this?” Dave asked looking at the box.

“Lost and found. And confiscated, dropped, caught and generally everything left after a night of brawling. A couple of bards have up and left mid performance, so grab a drink while I see if fortune favours you.”

Dave snorted. “It’d be a change.” He said before asking the dwarf behind the bar for some water, not wanting to risk anything more substantial with his new tastebuds. Fortunately, as he sipped it while watching the surrounding battle, water seemed to be neutral enough that it still tasted the same, which made sense. After all, it’s what people are mostly made of, so if you looked at it weirdly enough, it was diluted meat.

“Ha! I thought I saw one in here!”

Turning back to the elf, he saw her holding up an acoustic guitar with a look of triumph on her face.

She handed it to him. “It’s been here for months, so I don't think its old owner is going to come looking for it. Can you play it?”

Looking it over, he found it was in surprisingly good condition considering where it had been kept. The strings were decent and didn’t take much effort to tune, though in need of tuning, and the body and neck were sound. It wasn’t pretty, having been stained more than once by the look of it as things were spilled over it, but it was definitely playable. He hoped.

“As well I can play anything else at the moment.”

“Then let’s get you to the stage!”

“There’s a stage in here?” he asked in surprise

“Of course! See, over there were that mans beings choked out by the hobgoblin, under the unconscious half-giant. Speaking of which...”

Passing through the crowds, he watched as she grabbed the enormous figures ankle and proceeded to drag him towards the door, cutting a wide path through the room as people got out of the way, leading to a small silence, interrupted by him strumming the guitar to make sure he’d tuned it properly.

Every set of eyes on the place locked on to him as he headed towards the stage, people pausing their fights but not releasing their grips in case it was boring. Standing up in front of them all, he was glad he’d overcome his stage fright long ago, but smiled suddenly as he realized a fitting song to play for them.

“Name’s Dave Andel, and to kick things off, let’s go with a favourite of mine. Ballroom Blitz.”