They went to a pub in a part of town further down the Strach than he normally went. After he’d settled in with the guild, he’d rarely ventured more than thirty minutes’ walk beyond the guildhouse while in Rakote.

Elise ordered drinks for all three of them, then smiled wide at Elrick. “So, how much do you think each of those shipments is worth?”

“What shipments?” he asked, sipping his beer. It was bitter, and there was definitely some sand in it—not uncommon in the Rakotan desert.

“The ones your guild has a high-level mage guarding,” she said, her smile disappearing.

Elrick shrugged. “Haven’t thought about it.”

That was a lie. He’d tried to calculate how much each shipment was worth to compare it to how little of the loot he was getting for his role in the venture.

Seven or eight guild members put in work on each mining run. The mages were obviously the most valuable and essential, so he decided to allocate 50% of the entire run to whoever the mage was. He realized that Yaraka herself didn’t get the money, but her guild did. This was probably an overestimate, but skilled mages were incredibly rare in Rakote, and without Yaraka or an equally skilled mage, they wouldn’t be able to profitably take on the golems to mine them. Without Yaraka, there was no loot to even split.

The remaining 50% would be divided among the remaining six people. The more seasoned fighters or miners should get more—of course—so maybe the greener three on the mining crew would split something like 20% of the pay. Elrick rounded down to make sure he wouldn’t make the picture look overly bleak: he should be getting around 5% of the profit on each run.

They did one run a week, and each time they loaded the raft, it had somewhere between 100-150 slippery bronze ingots. In Antia, he’d sold 20 regular bronze ingots for 2 gold. Those ingots were just sitting in mountains all over the land, and one lone miner could just walk right up and mine it out with a pickaxe. The slippery copper needed a full crew, including a highly skilled mage. And it was rare. His guild here had a monopoly on the mine.

They sold a full set of slippery bronze armor—breastplate, braces, greaves, boots, and helmet for 500 gold. To make a full set like that, it took about 7 ingots. Again, rounding down, each shipment could produce around 20 full suits of armor. That was worth 7,500 gold.

They only let the most skilled smiths craft the slippery bronze. There was some kind of trade secret that Elrick hadn’t been let in on yet, and valuing the master smiths’ time and skill, Elrick decided the armor made something like 5,000 gold profit per run.

If Elrick was entitled to 5% of that, he’d make 250 gold per week. Not 12 or 15. Even if he completely redid all the math, factoring in things like equipment, operating costs, risks taken, initial investments, etc., he should be making more than he was. Maybe Yaraka was costing even more than 50% per run, or maybe the higher-ranking guild members were getting even more. If that were the case, then with time, Elrick could be making more too. But he didn’t have time.

“Haven’t thought about it?” Elise said, putting her beer down. “I have.”

“Why’s that?” he asked.

“So that I could convince you that they’re ripping you off,” she said.

“Why do you need to convince me? What are you two up to?”

Durka had been quiet, and he just took a deep chug of his beer while waiting for Elise to take over. His emerald green eyes met Elrick’s for a moment, but he looked at Elise and waited. He was visibly older than her by maybe a decade, but he clearly took orders from her.

“There’s more than just Durka and me,” she said. “We’ve been robbing the guilds in Rakote, Elrick, and we need your help to rob yours.”

Elrick started to stand up, his drink still unfinished. He shook his head vigorously, muttering “No, no, no, I don’t think so,” as he started to back away from Elise as fast as he could.

She was fast though, and she stood up and got behind him, blocking his path to the door. Elrick worried that Durka would come up and intimidate him, that the two of them would somehow threaten or coerce him into helping rob his own guild.

They didn’t hurt him though. Durka didn’t even get up, he just sat there sipping at his drink, his green eyes looking between Elise and Elrick.

“Sit down, Elrick,” Elise said. “Hear me out.”

He knew he should all but run out of the pub before she somehow convinced him to help, but guilt held him in place, and it brought him slowly shuffling his feet back to the counter, and it was guilt sat him back down on his butt.

Elise sat down again as well and smiled wide at Elrick. “Why don’t you tell Durka how we came to Rakote?”

“Uh,” he stammered, “we died in Antia. Got resed here.”

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“Further back,” Elise said.

Elrick’s heart pounded hard in his chest, and blood rushed to his ears. He hadn’t really realized how much he’d subconsciously avoided thinking about this over the last several weeks—or months, it had been two months since he’d been resurrected. He’d been motivated to get back to Antia and to kill Hunter, but he hadn’t given much thought to exactly how he’d died.

The guilt betrayed the truth though, and Elrick knew deep down in his bones that it was all his fault that both of them were here.

“Uhh,” he said, “I got us caught. It’s my fault we came to Rakote.”

To play along with Elise, he should have been telling this to Durka as if it were just updating him on some facts, but he knew the real intention was to make him feel guilty. To break him down so he’d agree to betray his guild.

“Better,” Elise said, “but why don’t we get into the nitty-gritty specifics of how you got caught. If I recall correctly, you got caught with your pants down. I mean that literally, by the way.”

“You two were…” Durka said, looking them both over with raised eyebrows.

“No!” Elise said, punching Elrick’s arm. She had gotten stronger, her punch hurt. “This idiot had to pee. We had only been hiding under the leaves for a few hours—”

“All day,” he said, “and you wanted us to stay there for most of the night too. I couldn’t hold it that long.”

“Just piss your pants,” Durka said. “You got yourself and another person killed because you didn’t want to piss your pants?”

“No,” Elise said, “tell Durka what an honorable gentleman you were! You didn’t care about pissing your pants, right? The true reason that you had to get us both killed was…”

She trailed off and looked at him expectantly. He decided that he’d say it outloud, but that he would not agree to help Elise. He would pay her back somehow, some day, but not like this. For now, he’d take his punishment by saying this aloud.

“I didn’t want to pee on Elise,” he said. “We were buried in the leaves and foliage, but I was uphill of her. It—uh—it would have gone downhill.”

Durka burst out laughing.

* * *

The next morning, Elrick started to nod off even though it was his shift with the crossbow. Jocha kicked his shin without getting up. It was supposed to be Jocha’s turn to rest, but Jocha was apparently sleeping with one eye open.

“Sorry,” Elrick muttered.

Elrick had tried to stay angry at her. If the Miners’ and Coppersmiths’ Guild even suspected he’d met with a band of thieves who were stealing from the guilds, he could be kicked out—or worse. But his anger had strayed from Elise to his guild. He kept trying to recalculate the math. Maybe it was one hundred times more labor-intensive to cast slippery bronze than it was regular bronze? Or maybe it required orders of magnitude more ingots, or maybe…

Or maybe he was getting shafted?

Now it was time for another trip down the river, and he wasn’t rested. He couldn’t focus, and he was jittery. What if Elise contacted him again? What if she didn’t? Should he warn the guild?

He hadn’t intentionally stayed up this time. He’d never make that mistake again. He’d tried to sleep. He’d badly wanted to, but Elise’s offer had kept him awake.

She wouldn’t screw him over like this, would she? Since he’d refused to help, she’d just target another guild. Or she’d at least do him the courtesy of not robbing a run that he was a part of.

Still, what if they connected the dots? He’d mentioned to the priest who resurrected him that he knew Elise, and in his first weeks in Rakote he’d asked around blindly about her—all over town.

He could deny ever having seen her again, but then at least a dozen people from the sparring grounds had seen them talking together. And then more at the pub.

He should have made her promise to leave his guild alone before he’d left. He couldn’t go looking for her or Durka, or be seen making contact with them in any way. It was bad enough that they’d met the one time.

His anxiety was the only thing that kept him awake for the rest of his watch, and the moment he handed the crossbow over to someone else, he collapsed in a heap on the raft. He didn’t wake up until they were at the mine.

Elrick woke up to the sound of Gotha yelling. He rubbed his eye and saw Theria, Gotha’s second-in-command, and head of the other shift, trying to calm him down.

“What’s going on?” Elrick asked.

Jocha shrugged. “Something about fortifying here. News of trouble upriver. They’re saying it’s not safe to move Theria’s haul back to Rakote just now.”

Elrick’s stomach sank. He felt his cheeks burning. He could tell them everything now. What if the “trouble upriver” was Elise and Durka’s band of thieves coming to raid them?

Even if Elise didn’t succeed, the Miners’ and Coppersmiths’ guild would probably tie him up and treat him as a co-conspirator. He’d never get back to Antia.

“What kind of trouble?” Elrick asked. “Does this happen often.”

It hadn’t happened since he’d started.

“Not too often.” Jocha spit into the sand. “We gotta be cagey when it comes to moving such valuable hauls. I don’t get paid to care too much. Let the big shots figure it out. Let’s get some grub.”

Elrick tried to eavesdrop, but Gotha and Theria ducked into a tent, lowering their voices.

Theria’s crew was still here, and they ate together with Gotha’s. Everyone was in an extra good mood, and having twice as many people made it feel like a party. Elrick ate in a stupor. He didn’t taste the food, and when others laughed, he laughed to blend in, never even hearing the jokes.

Yaraka wasn’t there. She usually ate off on her own, but still around the others. He hadn’t seen her since they’d docked at the mine.

“Where’s Yaraka?” He asked.

Everyone was laughing, and his question and tone broke the mood. Someone frowned and shrugged at him.

He let it go, and they forgot quickly, going back to their food and drinks. He looked toward the tent that Gotha and Theria were in, but the flaps were still shut.

Geitana, the mage for Theria’s crew, popped her head out of the tent, frowned, and ducked back inside.

Yaraka must be in there with the crew chiefs.

Long after dinner was over, they finally all came out of the tent: Gotha, Theria, Yaraka, and Geitana.

Gotha coughed and narrowed his eyes, and quiet overtook the camp.

“Theira’s crew is going to stay here for now,” Gotha said. “You’ve all worked hard the past few days, and I appreciate that you need a break, but we need you here to help fortify the camp. What we’ve heard are just rumors, and we hope they’re baseless, but we won’t take any risks. Theria’s crew will not mine, but they’ll be taking shifts on the watch, and I want everyone combat ready. Stay within arm’s reach of your weapons, even when you’re sleeping.”

People around Elrick started whispering to each other. The happy mood from moments before had been dragged out back and shot.

“Just rumors?” Jocha asked.

“We’re prepared for anything,” Gotha said, puffing out his chest. “We’re probably overreacting, even. Just get some sleep, our crew begins mining at dawn.”