Bee got up in the night to empty her bladder. The flophouse privy was disgusting, and the edge of the city was just a stone throw away, so she decided to do her business out in mother nature, the way god intended. Brought her axe, just in case she needed to bop something nasty.

The street was just about abandoned, only a few squares of amber firelight pouring out of windows to break up a great pool of darkness. Spooky. Great time to get murdered.

The gates were closed to travel at night, but she found a quiet patch of grass below that served her fine. She was on her way back, giggling about a dream Will was having about talking chimps in tuxedos, when someone called out in the night.

“Hello?” said the disembodied voice, setting dogs off barking in the distance.

Bee put her hand on the axe. Peered around, couldn’t see anyone. “Talking to me?”

“Yeah.”

“What do you want, then?”

Oh, man. Will’s going to be so angry with me if I end up having to kill somebody. He told me to use the privy in there, too…

“Don’t worry,” the voice said, getting closer. Sounded female. Bee could just make out a dark shape approaching. Seven amber crystals gleaming. “We know each other.”

Should’ve brought Will’s stupid orb thing with me. Can’t see shit.

Bee drew her weapon and pointed it at the shape. “That’s close enough. This is a hell of a time to be striking up a friendly conversation, you know.”

The silhouette held up its hands. “I know. I’d planned on speaking with you tomorrow morning, but I went out to pee and I thought I saw you, so I called out.”

Bee chuckled. “Hey, twins.” She stuck the axe back through her belt and crossed the distance to the stranger in two steps. She caught a handful of rough fabric, filmy with dirt under her fingertips. She hauled the woman over to a lit window, undeterred by her feeble protests, to get a better look at her.

Bee frowned at the young woman. Her face was vaguely familiar, but it took her a moment to place it.

“You’re… one of those women we bailed out. Is that right?”

She let the woman pull free, staggering back against the wall while she tugged her clothes straight. “Yeah, that’s right. Lauren.”

“Oh, yeah. Lauren… Lowdown?”

“That’s right. But someone here gave me a new nickname. I go by Loony now.”

“All right, Loony. What happened to your friend?”

She took a while to answer. “Dead.”

“Ah. Sorry about that.” Bee took half a step back. “Look, not meaning to be rude or anything, but what is it you wanted me for? I’ve got some sleep to catch up on. We’re supposed to leave early tomorrow.”

“I figured,” Loony said. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Yeah?”

“I was wondering if I could come with you.”

“Things in Timbryhall not so sweet?”

“Not so sweet,” Loony concurred.

There was no sense discussing this in the street, so they headed to a nearby tavern still open at this hour to talk things over. The master of the establishment gave Bee the stink eye, but took her money in the end.

*****

Will got up in the morning and found that some executive decisions had been made in his absence. When he tracked Bee down in Timbryhall proper so they could scare up some breakfast, he found her speaking amicably with a scruffy-looking woman outside a coffee house. One of the women they’d rescued from the bandits, he realized. Lauren.

He wandered over, hands on hips, and cleared his throat to get Bee’s attention. She looked up at him with a sheepish smile.

“Didn’t I tell you not to go out on your own?” he asked pointedly.

“I’m not on my own though,” she retorted, jabbing a thumb in Lauren’s direction. She was clearly proud of her loophole. “This is—”

“I remember. Lauren, correct?”

The woman nodded, picking at nails already crusted with blood from previous efforts. “Yes, sir.”

Sir now, is it? Guess that money I left her with ran out. “What happened to Min?”

“Died. I think something climbed over the wall and took her. In the morning there was just a lot of blood, and she was missing.”

“That’s a shame.” Sheerhome did not have so much trouble with monsters getting inside, but then Timbryhall was smaller, in a less advantageous position for repelling attacks. “Find work in town?”

“Loony’s looking to get out of here,” Bee explained, chewing on a piece of fluffy pastry and waving at the woman with the remainder. “I said we’d take her on.”

Will’s smile stiffened. “You did, did you?” I don’t remember putting you in charge of hiring decisions.

Bee did not look deterred. <>

Maybe I would if you could get it out of your own ass.

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<>

Fuck you.

<>

Troglodyte.

Lauren—or Loony, as she apparently preferred to be called—seemed aware that she was missing out on something, glancing between the two of them. She kept quiet, probably realizing that she was on thin ice already.

<> Bee insisted. <>

Will relented. I’ll hear her out. “All right,” he said with a sigh. “Sell me on it.”

“She—” Bee started, but Will held up a finger in her direction to silence her, keeping his eyes locked on the other woman.

“Not you,” he said. “She can speak for herself.”

Level 7 was a good sweet spot for a potential recruit. Not so fresh that he’d have to teach her from scratch, but not so seasoned that she’d consider herself above instruction, cause trouble. It wasn’t like they couldn’t use some fresh blood, either—especially with Gug out of the picture.

It was her Profession that was the issue. She was an Entertainer, and considering she had been kept as a bandit plaything, he could not imagine that she would have been allowed to spec towards combat. More likely towards some sort of middling courtesan build.

“I’m good with instruments,” Loony said. She did a good job keeping her voice even, but there was still a detectable note of desperation. “I was a musician before. That’s why I picked Entertainer when I got here. I can sing, too.”

“Uh-huh.” It wasn’t getting any better. “You got Panache?”

“Well, no.”

“What abilities do you have?”

“She’s good with Illusion,” Bee interjected, then crammed the rest of her pastry in her mouth and wiped her hands on her pants. She mumbled out something incomprehensible, then swallowed hard. “Show him!”

Loony obliged. She threw up a hand, and balls of light flew out of her palm, exploding like fireworks above her head. The sparks coalesced into horses with flaming manes that descended onto the tabletop and pranced about on silent hooves. Then the image degenerated, distorting, and vanished in a puff of smoke.

The woman bit her lip, eyes trained on the tabletop. She knew she’d done poorly.

But Will was intrigued. She hadn’t used a verbal command, which meant that she must have used partial signs with her off hand under the table to trigger the skill. That alone showed a fair bit of industry.

Additionally, Illusion was an ability with a high skill gap. If you were bad at it, it was little more than a party trick. But if you had the talent to create precise, lifelike illusions, it had all sorts of applications. Few savory ones, of course, but that was another matter.

Loony had managed to shift the illusion twice before it shattered. Good sharpness, too. Maybe Bee had stumbled onto something.

“Can you do faces?” Will asked.

“Huh?”

“Faces,” Will repeated, waving a hand in front of his face. “Can you use Illusion to change your appearance? Your clothes?”

“Yes, sir. The, uh… The bandits, well they…”

Will nodded. “I understand.” No use forcing her to talk about it. He pointed at Bee. “Make your face look like hers.”

Loony spent a minute studying Bee’s face closely, leaning this way and that to capture it from different angles. Then she ran a hand over her face, and when she dropped it, there were two Bees sitting in front of the coffee house.

This time, Will caught the hand signs. Quick hands. Good.

The illusion itself was not bad at all. Will searched for flaws with all the strictness of a surly school principal. The scars looked off, especially where they joined with the hair, which she had not altered. The eyes were a shade too dark, the lips too thin. The nose lacked a slight uptilt that Bee’s possessed.

In all, you’d have to know Bee quite well to notice any difference at all.

Will had Loony speak with the illusion on to see how she would manage it. The mask lagged behind, mouth movements stiff and not quite synced up with reality. But it was a start.

Her illusory work was certainly better than Buck’s. He had a tendency towards the cartoonish, but Loony had an eye for capturing lifelike detail.

“How long have you been here?” Will asked.

“About three months, I guess.”

“How many ranks in Illusion?”

“Just the one, sir.”

Just the one, huh? Not bad.

Will had one last test for her. He pointed out a random old man in the crowded street and had Loony match his face. Her first illusion faltered when she tried to morph it, and she was forced to cast another. Rapidly changing an illusion was one of the trickiest parts of using the skill, or so he had been told.

The face the woman donned bore only a passing resemblance to the one Will had pointed out. She seemed to be worse with men’s faces. Matching it up with her own had to be difficult. Of course, he had not expected her to manage a perfect recreation, with the unideal subject he had chosen for her. The face she had made would likely fool someone from afar, and that was impressive enough.

“Got any Dexterity?” Will asked.

Loony nodded. “Some.”

“Looks too, I’m guessing? Charisma?”

“Mostly Dexterity and Looks. A few points in Awareness, too.”

“Why Awareness?”

“I picked them up in the tower. I thought it would help me get more attuned with instruments or something.”

“Ah. It doesn’t really work like that.”

“I know that now. I didn’t then.”

Meaning she wasn’t a taker. In more ways than one, it seemed. She clearly hadn’t joined a stable of whores, even though that was likely to be the only paying work she’d reasonably get, except as a tavern serving girl or something, which was not much better in terms of being manhandled by rough types. Maybe she just hadn’t gotten desperate enough to consider it yet. But there was something about her that told Will she would never let herself be exploited again.

“You might have lucked out with the Awareness thing,” he mused. “It’ll help with your illusions, at least some, although Focus or Vision probably would have been more ideal. You got a divine vow?”

Loony shook her head. “Don’t know what that is.”

Poor thing. It’s a miracle she survived this long at all. “Very well. You’re on.”

She managed a weak smile. It looked a little ghoulish through the mask of the old man. It took a while before she caught on and let the illusion drop. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”

Will held up a hand. “Don’t thank me yet.” He folded all his fingers but two. “Two things first. One: if it isn’t obvious already, I’m hiring you on for your potential skill with subterfuge. Spy stuff. In other words, you won’t be playing the fiddle for a living or anything. I’d expect you to develop your build at least somewhat along those lines.”

Loony nodded. Not picky, evidently.

“Two: until you prove your value, your compensation will be food and lodging. We’ll keep clothes on your back and get you all the tools you need for work. If you want to pick up a hustle on the side to earn a bit of coin, that’s up to you. Something to help you with leveling would be good.”

Another nod. There was iron behind the weariness in her eyes. “Understood.”

They shook hands on it, and that was that. Another set of hands on the team, bringing them back up to a healthy six.

Before they left town, he made sure to get her a bath, along with some gear. Decent clothes, a pack, a belt knife, and a slender dagger. Something concealable, since he’d probably have her doing work on the down-low. He’d get her to practice with the bow, too, but she could share with the chimps for the time being.

“See? I get it right every once in a while,” Bee said smugly while they waited for their new member to change into her travel gear. She poked him in the ribs. “Admit it! Admit it!”

“All right, I admit it.” He held up his hands in surrender. “Though I think you rather stumbled into that one.”

“Nah. It was intuition. Pure skill. I’m great at reading people, you know. A great judge of character. Everyone says.”

“Whatever you say.”