Jacob’s way of setting up a meeting with General Fairbank was by walking into his command post unannounced and pulling over a fold-out chair to sit down opposite his desk. He waited patiently until the gruff, mustachioed man looked up from his interface and raised his eyebrows in a ‘what do you want?’ way.
“I’ve got some info on the urgek that killed Steelfeather,” Jacob said. “Thought you might want to hear it.”
“And who are you?”
“You know who I am.”
The general didn’t reply, which Jacob took as confirmation by omission.
“He’s called Elyuk, apparently. Just some grunt, but he’ll be a warchief now that he’s killed the old one. I’ve also got a lead on where he might be holed up.”
“And where might that be?”
“I don’t think I’ll tell you. I’d like to retain some exclusivity with this job, after all. Just know that I can get to him, so feel free to rely on me.”
The general snorted derisively.
It had taken a second conversation and a whole lot of wheedling to get a location out of the dead urgek. Apparently, Elyuk would likely have retreated back to a stronghold called Foehowl Redoubt, which had been under Garugor’s command until his untimely demise. Jacob had shown Garugor a map so that he could point out its approximate location. It would only take an hour or two to get there with the Quickdraw.
“I want you to set up an assignment for me to kill him,” Jacob continued. “I want a masterpiece Relic as the reward.”
“That’s quite the ask, boy. I have to pitch the Guild something they’ll actually go through with.”
Jacob shrugged. “You want this guy dead, don’t you? Better pay up.”
“I can get you a rare Relic.”
“Nah. I’ll take a masterpiece. I’ve got a specific one in mind.”
Fairbank clicked his tongue sharply. “You’ve got quite a high opinion of yourself, don’t you? You’re just some A-Rank—don’t get ahead of yourself.”
“Fine. Take care of the S-Rank killer yourself then, go ahead.”
Jacob patiently waited out the next half minute of tense silence.
“A masterpiece Relic,” Fairbank conceded. “But no money on top.”
“Sure, sure. Just the Relic.”
Jacob had looked over the reward pool offered by the Heroes’ Guild. There were some interesting ones on there—mostly at the higher rarities, unsurprisingly—but the masterwork that caught his eye were Drakemyth’s Kinetic Blast Knuckles. It would make him two-for-two regarding Relics with pun names, but he liked the effect. They were a pair of brass knuckles that would release a focused, forward-facing explosion when making contact with a target. The blast would increase in intensity with the force of the impact provided by the user, making it scalable. It would also work well with his close-range, mainly unarmed fighting style, still allowing him to use his fingers for grappling and maneuvering. And being one of Drakemyth’s creations only added to their credibility.
Even if he ended up getting them, he would have to wait for them to be delivered to Rust via the supply lines being established from Mars, but it wasn’t like he was in a big rush or anything,
“Well, if you get that set up, I’ll have some ugly bastard’s head for you in no time,” Jacob said, standing up. “Great talk, bye now.”
“Hold on,” Fairbank said, holding up a hand. “There was actually something I wanted to discuss with you.”
“Oh?” Jacob plopped back down in his seat. “How flattering—a general deigning to concern himself with a lowly A-Rank.”
“Dispense with the sarcasm, please.” He brought up his interface again and began scrolling through it. “You were there when Steelfeather’s handler was recovered.”
“Yes. Reardon, is that right?”
“Hannah Reardon, correct. Now that she no longer has a hero to represent, we will need to place her elsewhere. You and your little arm of the Hero for Hire independents are without supervision at the moment, I believe?”
He said it like Jacob was some unruly child.
“Sadly we don’t have a babysitter at the moment,” Jacob confirmed. “You wanna toss her at us, is that it?”
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Fairbank pursed his lips. “If both parties are amenable to it, I don’t see why no.”
“Well, I’m not against it. I guess I could go talk to her right now. Is she up for visitors?”
“Maybe. You’ll have to check. She’s still with the thunes.”
With that, Jacob took their conversation as being over and left the command post. A bit of poking around brought him inside one of the thune ships where Reardon was being kept during her recovery. The interior of the vessel was all curved, softly lit hallways and rounded sliding doors that chimed when they opened and closed. He was chaperoned by a thune—ostensibly to show him the way, but the overly attentive way the alien watched him gave him the impression that they were mostly worried about him making trouble or breaking something.
Reardon had her own room with light gray walls and barely any furniture. She lay in a large bed that was just a slab with a mattress only two or three centimeters thick, no sheets and no pillow. It didn’t look very comfortable.
A trio of mages were doting over her. They gathered up their equipment and left the room at the chaperone’s request, allowing him at least a small bit of privacy.
The little brown-haired woman looked all sorts of beat up, her bruised torso exposed except for a white wrapping over her chest. She had a large, scabbed-over wound on her gut with angry red edges, and she had bandages running diagonally over one side of her head.
“Sorry about your guy,” Jacob said as he approached. There were no chairs, so he just lingered next to the bed. “Steelfeather was a tough one. Shame he’s gone.”
“I liked him,” Reardon said in a soft, squeaky voice. “He cooked for me sometimes even when I told him not to.”
“Damn.”
“I was actually, uh…” She bit her lip, then shook her head. “Nevermind.”
“Go on.”
“I was actually in love with him.” She blurted it out all at once, then screwed her eyes shut tight. “I never said anything to him. Now I don’t know if I’m sad or happy that I didn’t.”
“No sense thinking about it anymore, is there?”
“Probably not.” She wrung her hands in her lap and picked at her short nails.
“I just got done talking to the general. He says that since you’re not representing anyone anymore, he’s okay handing you over to me and my people. We’re independents, so you’d be acting as the go-between for us and the Guild.”
“I see.”
“With what you just said, I realize it might be a little soon to talk about this stuff. I don’t need an answer, I just wanted to let you know about it. Full disclosure, we’re not exactly squeaky clean, as heroes go. We get our hands dirty.”
“I know. I’ve heard the stories.”
“Any good ones?”
She smiled awkwardly, unsure what to say.
“That was a joke, don’t worry.” Jacob cleared his throat. “I should probably also tell you that I’ll be going after the turd who killed him. Let me know if you want me to bring back a trophy or something.”
“I… don’t want a trophy. Thank you, though. But do you really think it’ll be okay? I saw him fight. That thing, it was…really strong. I didn’t think I’d ever see Steelfeather lose. But he did.”
“Yeah, don’t worry. I’m not as strong as Steelfeather, but I’ve got one big advantage.”
“What’s that?”
“I fight dirty. I’m good at killing people in their sleep, you know.”
“That’s…” She didn’t look very reassured, but in the end she gave a firm nod. “Okay. Do whatever you need to do.”
Jacob nodded back. “Yes, ma’am.”
“I can’t give you my answer right now. If I want to be your liaison or not. I’m not quite ready to go back to work yet anyway.”
“That’s fine. Just let me know when you decide.”
He left Reardon to recover and went back to the Quickdraw. He got his assignment notification during the walk over.
[ASSIGNMENT: PULLING WEEDS]
[OBJECTIVE 1: ELIMINATE ELYUK, URGEK FIGHTER; DEAD PREFERABLE]
[REWARDS:]
1 Relic of any rarity from reward pool
He asked around the Quickdraw if anyone wanted to participate. Anton agreed to tag along, which wasn’t too surprising considering his gung-ho nature and dangerous levels of confidence. Everyone else bowed out. This time, he really would need the ship, so he asked non-participants to find somewhere else to crash until he got back.
He was helping Danger prepare for departure when the Witch walked right onto the ship, drawing his attention by knocking on the wall with a metallic conk conk conk.
“I hear you’re going,” she said.
“Yup.”
“Got room for one more?”
Jacob liked working with non-independents. It meant not needing to worry about potentially having to split rewards or anything like that.
“Prepared to die out there?” Jacob asked.
“I don’t die,” the Witch said dryly.
“What a coincidence. Well, whatever, come along. We’re short-staffed anyway.”
The Witch helped them get set up. They were all ready to go and just about to leave when they received another visitor, calling to Jacob from outside. He went down onto the ramp to see who it was.
It was Excelerate in his dark, drab robes, the bells on his clothes jingling in the wind.
“I’m the only S-Rank here right now, so I can’t leave the place undefended,” he said, arms crossed. “But I would have liked to come with you. Steelfeather was a good man. A little vengeance will do everyone good.”
Jacob nodded seriously. “You got it.”
“If you pull it off, I’ll buy you a drink.”
“If I pull it off, you’ll buy me a night’s worth of drinks.”
Excelerate chuckled at that. “Deal.”
The S-Rank let them go, and they took off, headed northeast for Foehowl Redoubt. Danger was clearly displeased with their planned destination, but to his credit he didn’t utter a word of complaint.