Blood River tensed up as the woman correctly identified him.

"Hold it," Mister Black warned. "Someone willing to call you that out loud isn't simple, and you really don't want to be chased out of town after a murder. Let's see what she's after first."

River agreed mentally and forced out a smile for the woman to see. "Mister River will do, of course, Miss--?"

"Five." The woman's lips quirked in a smile. "You can call me Five, Mister River. So, are you going to invite me in, or are we having this discussion here?"

River chuckled. "Please, come in." He stepped back from the doorway, allowing the blonde-haired woman to enter the room.

"You know, you look a little bit different from what I was expecting," she commented as she crossed the room and sat at the end of the bed's mattress.

"Oh?" River was a bit taken aback by the frank admission but hid his surprise by facing away as he closed the room's door and bolted it.

"You're supposed to be a terrifying blood-sucking monster that can level an entire outpost by himself," Five explained. "Usually, someone like that looks a lot older. Unless, of course, you're really an old monster and just so happen to practice some art that preserves your youth."

River laughed as he turned to face her. "I don't think you have to worry about my age, ma'am. I'm in no danger of clutching my chest and keeling over any time soon, at least." He flashed her a smile. "I also don't see why I should be an old monster when you're as capable at your age."

He had activated his Mind's Eye as he was opening the door, and the feeling he had received from it was that the woman in front of him was of a level where she could put up a good fight against him. This coupled with Mister Black's warning is what made him adopt his current cordial stance.

"Ah, I'm only a pile of resources, nothing particularly special," she waved off his assessment self-deprecatingly. "My associates have thrown around all kinds of theories about you, though, and it looks like we all missed the mark."

"Your associates?"

Five nodded. "We're a lowkey group, nothing special, trying to undermine the Dragon's Den. This region needs stability, but not at the price of bowing to a rank tyrant. We call ourselves the Dragonslayers--"

River burst out in raucous laughter, interrupting Five's pitch.

"Is something funny, Mister River?" Five asked, her clear blue eyes showing their perplexity at the outburst.

River took a few deep breaths before responding. "You're a 'lowkey' organization who calls themselves the Dragonslayers. That's pretty much the opposite of lowkey if you ask me."

Five shrugged. "It puts down all questions of whose side we're on, at least."

"That it does," River nodded. "That it does." He sighed. "So, you were in the middle of telling me why this is something I should care about?"

"Well," she continued, "we figured that our group and you have something of parallel interests when it comes to the Dragon's Den, Mister River."

"That's a pretty huge leap of faith you're taking there, Five," he replied. "How are you so certain that I'm not just a maniac out to kill everybody? What makes you think I'm your 'Devil' anyway?"

Five took a deep breath, composing herself. "I'm a bit of an expert on putting together this sort of thing since it's part of my duties to scout new recruits. In your case, you left a pretty broad trail for me to follow, although part of that came from my being in the right place at the right time. That's part of why I work at the bounty office during the day, though."

"Oh? I guess I should be more careful, then." River was curious about how he had messed up so badly for this woman to find him, and if the trail was wide enough for anybody else to do the same.

Five shrugged. "Just a series of events. I've been watching you since you first arrived here. You showed up doing the whole thing with running around town in the middle of a summer day fully cloaked, that was the first thing. The bounties you picked, that's the next thing."

River frowned. "But one of those was for an Unauthorized. Wouldn't that place me squarely against you Dragonslayers?"

Five laughed. "You took special care in picking it, though. That guy was a rapist and a cannibal, not exactly the type we're interested in recruiting. There were far more attractive bounties available for some less dangerous targets."

He grunted acknowledgment at that. There was no arguing with her logic in this.

"You also completed those four bounties against four initial Meridian Circulation experts in a matter of only two days," she continued. "That's very impressive for a guy so green he doesn't know you shouldn't rip the bounty slips off the board."

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"Ah, noted." River nodded, mentally filing away that particular mistake as something to not repeat.

"Then there's the part where you had an especial interest in the new Flowing Water bounties that went up on the board today. Fellows like you are always taken by surprise when they find themselves on the board," Five recounted with a smirk.

River frowned. "There seems to be a missing link in there, though. The supposed Devil of Flowing Water only took out a minor outpost, not something that compares with four Meridian Circulation experts. And even so, couldn't I have come from abroad seeking fortune?"

Five smirked. "That's something I considered, but two more pieces of information made me far more certain that it was you."

"Oh?"

A knock came at the door. Five stood. "That should be your room service. Why don't you duck out of the way and let me get it?"

River shrugged and moved to the small sub-chamber with the wash basin and other such amenities while Five handled the arrival of his food. He kept an eye on her with his Mind's Eye as she rolled in the cart topped with silver trays bearing his dinner, making sure she made no suspicious moves.

"Okay, we're clear," she announced after the door shut and she bolted it. She examined the trays with eyes shining. "My, you're living fancy here, aren't you?"

River snorted, "I haven't had much of an opportunity to rest for long lately so I figured I'd indulge myself a little." He grabbed a chair and situated himself on it in front of the food cart as Five returned to her perch on his bed. "So, you were telling me the two pieces of information that made you certain I was the Devil of Flowing Water?"

"Ah, yes," Five smiled. "Well, first off, the very same day you arrived, a caravan from the Balar Trading Company was ambushed a couple of hours outside of town as the herdbeast rides." Her smile grew more brilliant as she continued. "The bodies all had that signature lack of blood that was reported from the outpost in Flowing Water. Among them were two initial Meridian Circulation experts, and so I could tell that whoever did it could handle that level of opponent."

River furrowed his brow and nodded as he started in on carving a slice of roast for consumption. "Okay."

"That was a brilliant move, mind you," Five gushed, "and one the Dragon's Den hasn't had a good response to. How could you possibly know that there was a VIP in that caravan? The whole thing has the Den aflutter, and they've suppressed the information from general knowledge," she said with a smile, "but of course being where I am, I had the whole story immediately."

River chewed on a morsel of meat as he contemplated a good answer to that. "Who knows why that caravan, in particular, got struck, so maybe it was a coincidence?"

Five chuckled. "Well, it's a damn good one if you ask me. The Balar are huge across the entire world, a little bandit nest like the Dragon's Den doesn't even amount to a rounding error to them. Since this VIP of theirs was coming here, of all places, I imagine they were not all that important in the grand scheme of things, but the Balar tend to make object lessons out of fools, much like the Dragon's Den did of all of Flowing Water."

"And you said there was one other thing?" River reminded her.

"Oh, yes. Of course. That one's easy enough," she replied, shrugging. "You introduced yourself to me as Mister River. The local clans are very attached to their tribal names, and so I know that everybody inside the Flowing Water clan have names that have to do with water. Easy connection."

River ate a bit more while he thought. "Well then, I guess I should congratulate you on putting it all together. So I'm guessing you think I would make a good ally, then?"

Five smiled. "We figured you'd at least not rat us out even if you didn't join our little club here, Mister River. We're willing to offer benefits if you join us, of course."

River shrugged. "There's only one benefit I'm looking for here, Five: Brave Dragon's broken corpse. Anything else is extra."

"That's quite the ambition you have in mind there, Mister River. Are you absolutely sure there isn't anything you want from us?" Five was clearly looking to tie him to their organization with bonds more solid than mere mutual antipathy.

River sighed. "Well, if anything, I would hope that you aren't going to go out of your way to invest in the man called the Ghost of Flowing Water."

"Oh?" It was Five's turn to express surprise at a new piece of the puzzle showing itself.

"That man would be the former clan chief of Flowing Water, as you've no doubt guessed." River set down his fork and cracked his knuckles. "There's a debt of blood still to be paid there. Flowing Water wasn't flowing so much as it was a cesspool, a murky lair where foul criminals were permitted to remain in charge so long as they kept their sins under wraps. That man is the root of all that."

Five frowned. "So then you aren't at all interested in joining with him to take down the Den."

River shook his head. "Not even remotely. I plan on killing him as soon as I can find him, in fact, and so I am hoping you and your slayers of dragons could kindly keep out of my way on that. He wouldn't be a good ally anyway; he's only interested in raising his own cultivation on the backs of others."

Five shrugged. "Fair enough. I can get the word out to curtail any such attempts, then. But does this mean we'll have your cooperation, Mister River?"

River returned to carving some mouthfuls of meat from the roast. "I've told you my goals here, Five. I'm not interested in taking orders from anybody; I go where I want. If there's something I can help you with and it'll put the pressure on Brave Dragon, I'll consider it, but I'm not going to be anybody's foot soldier."

Five smiled. "Of course." She rose from her seat on the bed. "Well then, I think I've bothered you enough, Mister River. I need to go inform my associates of our discussion here, and perhaps I can have some answers for you in the morning."

"That fast?" River was surprised; the whole region wasn't exactly enormous, but even he would take the better part of a day to cover that ground.

"We have our methods," Five replied and gave him a coy wink and started heading for the door.

"Ah, you sure you don't want any of this?" River asked, gesturing at the food platters with the knife in his hand.

"Um, no thank you, Mister River," Five responded, unbolting the door. "I have work to see to still, and it's best I take care of it right away." She waved as she passed through the threshold. "Don't forget to bolt the door behind me!" She reminded him with a smile.

River shrugged. "Suit yourself," he muttered to himself. The impromptu meeting with a faction willing to fight the Dragon's Den was something of a pleasant surprise, but it brought up many questions on its own.

Questions like who exactly had been in that caravan that Mister Black had him slaughter.