"So," The mayor clapped his hands together once, "Just so we are clear, you are accepting my offer, yes?"

"Depends on what it is. You haven't told me what you're offering yet."

"Your life and freedom aren’t enough?" Thaelven growled.

"They are and I would be happy to proceed with those." Jiru answered with an ugly smile, "But the mayor here strikes me as someone who would be smart enough to make sure I get something more - for extra motivation."

Sarketh grinned. Clearly he thought everything was going his way. "You are right, of course," He said. "But just to be clear: where there is payment, there is a service in exchange. You get your life and freedom for keeping Arvane busy. You get something more… in return for something more."

"And those somethings more would be?"

"I have a small problem that you can help with." The man walked over to one of the smaller windows, staring off into space with his hands held behind his back. "Irrin, if you could explain?"

"One of the warbands in our employ is out there right now raiding a Lair, we need you to find them and give them this chest."

A long silence stretched out as Jiru chewed absent-mindedly on some fruit pieces - and on what he had just heard. It made no sense.

"All the people in this town, and you need me to help out with this?"

"Yes. Because the raiding party is in one of the Hidden Lairs."

"The what now?"

"Right, I keep forgetting you are not of this world. Short version: most of the Lairs that manifest in the Wilderness are easy to find. You asked how all this started - the most prevalent theory is that the entire Wilderness is controlled by some manner of entity that benefits from every life that is snuffed out by the monsters spawned in the Lairs. Mages have also noticed that the efficiency of their spells drops drastically in there; meaning it is possible the Wild taps into a little bit of our mana and uses it for its own purpose. So all of this means - "

"The Lairs have to be found for it to work."

"It would be more accurate to say that the Lairs want to be found, but yes. However, there are a few exceptions. Over the last several decades, raiders have come across hints that there are secret, hidden Lairs dotted across the Wild. A few of these have already been found, and they have yielded both wealth as well as powerful artifacts to those who were able to defeat them."

"And your team is inside one of these Hidden Lairs now. But still - why not send one of your own people?"

"I can't." The mayor turned around. "No one in town is supposed to raid a Hidden Lair. It's part of my agreement with - "

"Arvane."

"Yes."

"But you received information on one of these things and sent one of your own teams to handle it."

"Yes. Wealth and Power, Jiru Vanchi Rama. Is there any other thing that makes men so stupid?"

"Women." Irrin suggested.

"Ha! True enough, I suppose. But in this case, it is greed that got the better of me, not lust. Hidden Lairs are highly coveted by all - if I send just anyone to raid it, word will get back to Arvane, and I cannot afford that. The warband out there is a small group of elite fighters who are in my trust and very well paid for their loyalty and silence. Anyone else I can spare, I cannot trust to send to their aid, and anyone that I can trust, such as Irrin here, I cannot spare."

"And what makes you think you can trust me?"

"I don't have to. You're the only person in this town that I can be certain won't make a deal with Arvane, because I'm pretty sure whatever he has in store for you is not something you want to risk."

He's got me there.

"So," Sarketh approached the table. "Your map has been marked with the last known location of the raiding party. We lost communication with them days ago. According to their last message they had discovered the entrance to the Lair, and then we have heard nothing."

"A horse has been saddled and readied for you in the stables. You will, uh, 'steal' it on the way out. You can ride, I assume?" Off Jiru's nod he went on, "Find the warband - they are called The Ragged Blades, and are led by a woman named Raelia Dimar. Give them the chest, help them escape or clear the Lair, and when it is done, they will help you return to Everwatch in disguise. Meanwhile, with Arvane focused on you, I can put into motion some plans that I have been brewing for a while in anticipation of this moment. Once he is in custody, I can get out from under his influence, and you can use whatever information we gain from him to pass on to the Guardians. We all win."

"What if they're all dead, these Ragged Blades?"

"Then run. Do whatever you feel you must. I will not begrudge that. But finish the mission and you will be well rewarded."

The butler, with both flourish and condescension, tossed a small but fat coin sack on the table.

"Five hundred crescentmarks," Sarketh said. "The same again when this is all done."

Jiru sat back, weighing his options. They were few. The best one, at least for now, was to go with the flow of what fate had thrown in front of him.

"Anything else I need to know?" He asked. "Anything about Arvane?"

"Nothing more that I can share at this moment, no."

"Then it is time I told you."

"Told me what?"

"I've decided to improvise my escape."

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

There was a legitimate BOOMing sound as the door to the side exploded inwards, flying off the hinges and clear across the room to crash into the opposite wall. The sound was loud enough that everyone at the table - except Jiru - jumped in surprise and turned, hesitating for a moment.

Thaelven was on his feet in an instant, the staff flying into his outstretched hand, but Jiru was already moving.

He went for the butler first, on pure principle. The man had just enough time to widen his eyes in fear before a hand grabbed him around the throat, holding him in place while Jiru's other hand brought an empty ale flagon crashing into his face, beating him several times with enough force and aggression that the beer glass broke into pieces - so had the poor asshole's face and skull by the look of him - then without pausing, turned with the jagged broken glass still in his hand and lunged.

He almost made it to the mayor. He did have the satisfaction of seeing a repeat of the butler's same look of terror in the mayor's eyes as they watched his fingers close in to within an inch of the man's eyes before something body-slammed him aside to the floor. The object turned out to be the mayor's pretentious throne-chair, and it was even heavier than it looked, made even heavier by the fact that the mage had his arm held out, a blue glow coming off of both his hand and the chair itself, clearly controlling it telekinetically as it pushed down on Jiru, pinning him to the floor.

"Guards!" Thaelven ordered. "Seize him!"

The six armed guards (including Beardo) were already there - and that would have been that, except precisely at the same moment and as if on cue, Darkfang entered the fray.

Jiru had not wasted the time that he had spent devouring the mayor's little feast. He'd been honing in on the feeling in the back of his head that let him sense Darkfang, and, just like how people often surprised themselves by outperforming even their own expectations under intense pressure, he had tried something desperate and stupid - which worked.

He had decided, as he ate and listened, that it was time to finally tap into his soul bond with the weapon, to find out just how magic his magic sword was.

As it turned out, quite a bit. Jiru had almost set off a detonation immediately, so difficult was it to control once he tapped into the life force energy stored in the gems. He'd been praying to all the gods that his nerves and concentration would not show on his face, and someone - whether it was his Old Gods from Earth or the new ones from the In-Between was anyone's guess - must have heard him, because he'd been able to stay in control and carefully plan what happened next. Even then, he would not have been able to do what he had done if Sarketh and Thaelven had not been foolish enough to place the sword right outside that side door, chained up to a wall with a little magic.

As promised though, the combined strength of life force and mana overpowered the containment spell, and the chains had been even easier to snap than he had anticipated. Then the blade, still safely in its sheathe, had served as a very effective battering ram for the door itself, at which point the power he'd been holding onto detonated. The blast had rendered the door - heavy wood banded with steel - smashed into pieces.

The weapon arrived above the chair, and it disrupted the telekinesis. The chair dropped to the side as he stood, catching the still-sheathed Darkfang deftly in his left hand.

He did not bother drawing it. He had no intention of fighting the guards, or Thaelven, which would be even more stupid. Instead, holding the weapon by its scabbard with both hands, he swung, and brought the handle crashing down on the table. The guards were mere centimeters away from grabbing at him when the pommel struck the dining table's surface.

There was a second detonation.

This one was even stronger than the first. Jiru, in the middle of it, stayed more or less intact because the shockwave, as advertised by the manual, started from just outside him and radiated away. Nothing and no one else in the room was that lucky.

The table cracked along the middle where it was struck, collapsing into two uneven halves that skidded across the floor in force; at the same time the chairs were all tossed by the shockwave and flew away, and so did the guards. Thaelven had, somehow and at the last instant, protected himself and the mayor with a translucent mana shield - to an extent, at least. Sarketh sank to the ground, bleeding from his nose and ears. The decorative window was gone, shattered into pieces so miniscule they'd be finding tiny glass grains on the floor for days.

An eerie, strange silence settled as the dust and debris clouded the air. Thaelven made no move except to ready his staff, staying on the defensive and waiting for the next attack.

Instead Jiru attached his weapon scabbard (with Darkfang safely sheathed in it) to the backpack-harness, made sure the wooden chest was also securely latched on to it and pulled the whole thing on to his shoulders. He took his time to tighten the belt with the daggers on to his waist and the bandolier across his chest as Irrin stared at him in complete confusion.

"Tell the mayor I accept his gracious offer." He picked up the coin purse and put it in one of his pouches.

Then he jumped out through the broken window.

It was almost an hour before some semblance of order was restored. Luckily, the doctor had been chatting with one of the female guards and had not left, so he was able to save everyone from suffering any permanent ill effects - with the exception of the butler, who had both been closest to the blast and had suffered a truly savage beating that left him with a red mushy pulp instead of a face, needing weeks of treatment even after which, according to the healers, he would be cursed with painful headaches for life. The mayor himself had one ruptured eardrum which would take a couple of days to heal even with the most expensive healing magics, and would go through some loss of balance for about a day.

When the blood stopped flowing off his nose and his hearing returned enough to have a conversation, the mayor shrugged and sighed in exasperation.

"I am sorry, my lord." Thaelven said. "I hesitated. For a moment I was unsure what to do, and I knew you did not want him dead, so - "

"He was counting on that. He knew we could not cut loose against him. You realize what this means?"

"My lord?"

"This was his way of accepting my offer. Remember what he said right before the door blew?"

"That he had decided to improvise the escape?"

"Exactly. He took the deal. He just wanted to do it on his own terms. It's a message."

"That we do not own him."

"Mm-hmm." Sarketh grunted as he wiped his face with an already bloodied handkerchief.

"I fear we have made a mistake, my lord. He is not on our side."

"Of course not. He's on his side. Remember why he is here, Irrin. There is a threat to his people. Perhaps even his world. Our town and its problems mean nothing to him. And yet, no, I do not believe we made a mistake."

"Why?"

"He asked me to send Rumina away. He was plotting against us the whole time, but he would not hurt an innocent animal just because it happened to be in the way. Which I appreciate, at least. The guards went after him, I'm guessing?"

"Yes. They had not been told - "

"And I'm guessing he hasn't been found?"

"No. Should I call off the search?"

"No. This fiasco works in our favor, at least insofar as to create the right appearance that we need, so we'll use it. Let them search away. I would be very surprised if they find him."

"Saren is following him."

"Oh?"

"Yes. I received a message a few minutes ago. Apparently Rama took the horse, as we told him to, and he appears to be making his way out of town. He has not attempted to open the chest."

"Interesting. It seems he really does intend to honor the deal."

"It looks that way. Shall I tell Saren to follow him into the Wild or return?"

"Tell him to come back. I need him here."

"Yes, my lord."

Mayor Rahken Sarketh of Everwatch looked at the scene of carnage that had been his favorite dining room not long ago - the masterfully crafted dining table was done for, and so were a few of its chairs. They had all been part of a set, and would never be whole again. There was a small pool of dried blood where the butler had suffered his ruthlessly cruel beatdown. Sarketh sighed a second exasperated sigh.

"You know," He said after a moment, "I hate to admit it, but I'll say this for our new friend - he sure knows how to make an exit."