“If you want to find the entrance to The Morningstar Hotel and Spa you’ll need to get inside El ’Dorado.” Wendy said, sitting back in her chair as if my previous outburst and the blood trickling down her cheek weren’t bothersome in the slightest.

I raised my palm, gesturing for her to go on.

“El ‘Dorado,” she continued, “is an elite entertainment establishment here in the red-light district. It’s renowned for only serving a high standard of clientele.”

“So, in other words, it’s pay to play?” I asked, crossing my arms, and sighing openly. Why was nothing ever simple?

“Not quite,” Wendy replied with a half smirk on her purple face. “The buy in is expensive, but anyone can raise some gold. No… El ‘Dorado refuses to serve anyone who isn’t a noble, even if they do have money.”

I sighed again, rubbing my forehead as a deep, throbbing pain began to ruminate inside my skull. I dove back into my HUD and re-selected my party suit.

“So, if I dress like this it’ll help?” I asked.

“Maybe, though if you were friends with a noble who could vouch for you it’d be easier,” she replied. “At least you have the mark though, that saves me some explaining.”

Wendy gestured to the pentagram tattoo on the back of my hand and leant in closer to inspect it.

“How did you get that?” She asked, reaching out to grab my hand which I snatched away quickly.

“It’s a long story.”

“Well, regardless. You won’t get anywhere near the entrance if you can’t get into El ‘Dorado.” The svartalf smirked and leant back in her chair, crossing her arms, and eyeing me up.

“I suppose you know an easier way inside?” I asked, my headache worsening as I guessed where this conversation was going.

“How perceptive of you,” she chuckled, “it just so happens that I do. I know a guy who works there and for a price, maybe I’ll vouch for you and see if he can add your name to the list of nobles they give to the bouncers.”

“Well, I saw that coming a mile away,” Panda groaned, pulling out his bamboo pipe and lighting it to Wendy’s displeasure. “Once a snake, always a snake. Ain’t that right kid?”

“How much?” I asked through clenched teeth.

This whole charade was getting ridiculous. I was wasting so much time by having to jump through all of these hoops. Time that Bell might not have.

“100,000 gold,” she replied cooly without hesitation.

She’d been leading the conversation towards this from the start. If there was one thing I knew about Wendy for certain, it was that the only thing she ever seemed to care about was cold hard cash.

I mean honestly, a weapon’s merchant moonlighting as a sketchy bar owner. Who does that?

“Deal,” I said, delving into my inventory and depositing the gold directly onto her desk.

100,000 gold coins began to spill from my palm. The desk cracked under the weight and gold coins spilled out, filling the room. The svartalf jumped back, nearly falling off her chair as the unstoppable tide of gold ruined her office.

“Oh, sorry about that,” I said with a grin as I jumped back to avoid my mess. “I haven’t had a chance to set up my system banking with Adventure Society yet.”

Wendy wasted no time in sucking the gold into her own inventory and within moments the coins were gone. Her desk, however, was completely destroyed, even the floor had cracked slightly under the weight.

“I’m glad I didn’t raise the price,” she muttered, quickly composing herself and standing in front of her broken chair. “My contact’s name is Gav, I’ll let him know you’re coming. Once you get in, meet him by the bar on the second floor and he’ll show you to your hidden syndicate entrance.”

“Nice doing business with you,” I replied, moving towards the exit whilst the bartender watched, aghast at the exchange. “I’m sure it doesn’t need saying, but if you’re fucking with me I will be back here, and my next visit might not be so amicable.”

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

I left the office before she had a chance to reply, grinning smugly to myself.

“My next visit might not be so amicable?” Panda repeated slowly as we moved back through the crowded bar and left the establishment. “Who are you?”

“That’s the kind of thing people say in shady back-office dealings,” I replied nonchalantly. “Why, what kind of threat would you have made?”

“I’m a sage, we don’t need to make threats,” he replied.

“More like you can’t back them up,” I chuckled as we reached the top of the stairs and returned to the pleasant night’s breeze.

The red-light district was still bustling with prostitutes, creepy nobles, and commoners window shopping for the pleasures of the flesh.

“I take it you know where this place is?” I asked Panda as he began walking in the opposite direction to me.

“Yup, it’s pretty hard to miss, kid,” he replied, “you’ll see.”

We strolled in silence up the busy street trying to avoid any unwanted social interactions with the locals. The entire area made me feel uncomfortable. It was just so out in the open.

Where I was from, solicitation and prostitution were illegal so those who partook tended to keep it on the down low. I’d heard that it was quite different in other places, namely Amsterdam, but I’d never actually been there myself.

The glowing neon signs that lit the cramped streets were a far cry from the medieval fantasy theme I’d gotten used to in the other districts.

There were some neon signs and of course the Adventure Society building was a glass skyscraper, but this place felt… different.

We rounded a corner and suddenly I understood what Panda meant when he’d said that El ‘Dorado was pretty hard to miss.

Standing tall at the heart of the red-light district was a multi-tiered, golden building that looked more like a Japanese temple than a high-end brothel.

In place of neon, it had a large sign written in fancy, curly, calligraphy that said El ‘Dorado in bright, silver letters. Large stone steps surrounded the building on all sides and there was an ornate stone fountain directly in front of it.

“Well this place certainly… stands out,” I muttered to Panda as we approached.

“I told you so,” he replied, “now let’s just hope that dirty, conniving, cheating, svartalf held up her end of the bargain.”

I nodded and we approached the front entrance. There was a long queue stretching back halfway down the street filled with chattering people in normal clothing.

It was obvious that none of them belonged to noble families. I was no expert on nobility, but I knew enough to know that no self-respecting rich bitch would be caught dead in peasant’s clothing.

“I thought this place was nobles only?” I said quietly as we strolled casually to the front of the line.

“It is, but that doesn’t stop people from trying their luck anyway,” Panda replied, offering a casual wave of his paw.

As we walked past the queuing people, I began to notice some of them gawking at us whilst others gave us dirty looks. I could hardly blame them, I’d be pretty pissed off myself if someone cut the queue in front of me, but needs must and all that.

I forced my way through a small gathering of young human men and found myself standing in front of a large lycanid bouncer. He looked me up and down with bored, appraising eyes as his muzzle twitched ever so slightly.

“Name?” He asked cordially.

“Kaleb Akabane,” I replied. I could feel my palms beginning to sweat, this contact of Wendy’s had better have pulled through.

The lycanid spent a moment scanning a list on a long scroll in his hands. It seemed oddly medieval considering the neon signs that littered the district. I’d have expected him to have used some kind of magic iPad or something.

“You’re on the list,” he muttered in a low, yet somehow polite, growl. “Go on in and have a nice evening sir.”

I nodded to him and accepted his offer, walking hurriedly through the open, sliding paper doors.

“I guess Wendy’s guy was real after all,” I whispered to Panda.

He huffed back at me as we stepped into the entrance of El ‘Dorado, it was like a whole other world. Inside the odd, golden oriental temple was a refined and lavishly decorated establishment.

There were private booths filled with suit wearing nobles, each with a skimpily dressed girl on their arm. Well dressed, beautiful waitresses roamed around with golden bottles of bubbling liquid cradled in their arms.

There was a small bar in the corner, dancers on small platforms dotted about and three of the four walls were covered with sliding, paper doors which I could only assume led to private rooms.

It certainly wasn’t what I’d expected. With the exception of the private rooms and the dancers, it reminded me of a cabaret club – not that I’d ever actually been to one of those, but I’d seen them in manga.

“Good evening gentlemen,” a charming and overtly feminine voice said as we took a step inside. “Welcome to El ‘Dorado, where your wildest dreams come true. How may we serve you this evening?”

I looked to my left-hand side and saw a white furred catonid in a yukata staring up at me. She had her hands cupped delicately in front of her and she wore a light contouring makeup on her face which gave it the impression of being longer and more angular.

“We’re not quite sure just yet,” Panda said, thankfully taking over for me, “but we were thinking we might start with a drink, perhaps somewhere on the second floor? I’ve heard it’s nice up there.”

It was in times like these that I was thankful for my familiar’s oddly high charisma ability. I would have definitely stumbled on my words and sounded like a virgin if I’d have answered.

“Oh, you’re looking for one of those kinds of evenings?” The catonid replied coyly, looking me up and down and fluttering her long eyelashes. “That shouldn’t be a problem. Though you might be a tad overdressed for the second-floor sir. Perhaps you’d allow me to help you change into something more… fitting?”

I looked at her, at a complete loss for words as I felt my heart jump into my throat.

“That sounds great,” Panda said in my stead, “please lead on.”

The woman smiled and grabbed my arm delicately, hooking her own around it and pushing herself into me.

I hope Layla never finds out about this; she’d kill me.