My knees cracked with every burdened step up that sodding hill, the tight straps crushing my ribs as I, Raufa, and Henrique hauled the bundled equipment between the grey-hewn rocks of the mountains. Smart buttoned shirt and vest, well done trousers and polished weren't made for hiking. Resigned to my exhaustion I fell to a crawl. The sweat pouring from my scalp stung my eyes; my feet throbbed in pain the entire hour or so it took to climb to the Dragon’s lair. Bastards always chose some awkward spot to crawl into. About to start sprouting a rash in six places I could think of, and four more I couldn’t - typical. And yes, it was pretty typical, so that’s the moment I decided to start with. Hope you enjoy it, Stefan.

Raufa and the boy had arrived before me, breathing easy in the shade of the cliff overhang. Raufa, passive and unconcerned by her labours, as if pulling a boulder's weight up a hill were no burden at all. Those massive, rippling arms threatened more cranial damage with a punch than a dropped anvil. Nor the height advantage that punishes my neck every time I manage to meet her eyes. Thoughts of that once little girl were hard to come by in her presence, as was bladder control. She turned and gave me that soulless glare. Good to go.

“So, we’ll all go in and sort this out together, yes?” Henrique from behind. The sunlit plains lay behind him as we all stood beneath the caves initial overhang. His shirtless silhouette both hid and highlighted his grin. An impressive physique of his own, had I not just turned from Raufa’s.

“You know what I like about you, Henrique?” I asked. "You never let a bit of quiet go unmolested.”

“You could always pay me to stop talking,” he said. He moved towards the entrance, squinting inside.

“I’m barely inclined to pay you as it is,” I muttered beneath my breath.

“But seriously.” Henrique stepped beside Raufa, let his hand fall with a slap on her shoulder. His toned arms were nothing compared to her engorged things. “What do you say I help Raufa in there? Surely she’d be safer with me around. You wouldn’t have to go in, and you’d feel better about paying me more.”

I half laughed. Safer with him around. I wouldn't have to go in. Real funny. I gave him a practiced, managerial look, counted to about five to make him uncomfortable, then eight for fun, and glanced at his taller comrade, her dead, half-lidded eyes barely registering his presence.

“Raufa?”

“No.”

“Well I’m glad we got together on this,” I said, and with my caught breath I managed to dry the words out. “Henrique, if you’d be so kind as to actually do as you're told and help us get Raufa all dressed up?”

Unruffled, Henrique set about his business. Raufa nodded once and stepped forward, arms out. From within the pouches and bags I gathered the belts and harnesses, designed to strap the handheld Mokettian pumps and tubes as close and silent as possible. More cloth than leather, worn from it's repeated abuse, both physical and chemical. Still, not going to throw out technically usable equipment. Not in this economy.

She shrugged into the harnesses, then joined me in watching Henrique fail to remove a spigot.

“Don’t worry, Henrique. Take as much time as you want. Every second is being well spent evaluating your pay.”

“I’m not – it’s stuck!” Both hands wriggled at the spigot, leaning so far the barrel slid from the effort. Henrique lost balance. That flawless face creased and his leg kicked out. He broke the spout off.

Henrique watched the thing fly off down the crags, looked at the remaining piece still lodged in the barrel, then at me. I made a mental note to deduct his pay.

“Well done. Raufa.”

Raufa stepped forward, pinched those little sausages about the broken spigot base and popped it out like a ripe zit. She gave Henrique a level stare and an offered hand, in which he placed the plugs before standing of his own prideful accord. I took one and together we stopped all three barrels, then took a hammer to the lids, just to be sure.

“You want to learn about business, Henrique?” I asked, dusting off your waistcoat as you and he loaded Raufa up. “This is why I pay Raufa more than you. She’s strong, disciplined, loyal, and most unlike you despite her size, exceedingly quiet. Not just in keeping her mouth shut sort of way, but, well…”

Primarily about her chest the belts let Raufa string up three small kegs, stacked on her broad back, leather pads between to reduce noise. She also had flasks attached at the hip, upper arms, and a few stuffed in her pockets, all ready to be filled with that golden nectar. A hellish load, and one only a freak of nature like herself could carry.

Strapped and loaded up, only one step remaining. I stepped back to the sledge and retrieved the perfume. Violets and something like daffodils in this one, potent and local, hand picked by Raufa. We each took a cloth, dipped generously and together we wiped the hell out of Raufa’s every nook and cranny. Or rather she took those while Henrique and I got the more decent areas. All set, I gave her a pat on the back, gave her the hand pump and nozzle, and stood back, feeling proud.

She took the extraction tools, stowed them beneath her shirt, and took a step forward. Not a sound and not a smell that the breeze wouldn’t bring on its own.

Raufa set off into the darkness, fading in faster than ought to be normal. Contracts doing their work.

“Uh you were saying something?” Henrique said, stepping in front of me. “I think you were trying to be mean again.”

“I’m never mean, Henrique. I’m instilling my wisdom unto you. Raufa gets paid because she doesn’t get eaten by dragons, even while neck deep in their nethers. Or to put it another way, she’s reliable. That sort of talent is worth its weight in gold.” I nodded and smiled at his frown. I had indeed bothered him, and I was glad for it.

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“And how the hell did you test for a skillset like that?”

“Reliability? Trial and error. The ones you don’t want tend to not come back.” I backed away and into the sunlight, feeling a slight chill coming on. “Come on, lad. We’ve some time to kill. Why not show me some of that useless crap you’ve been wasting your money on.”

I found a decently round rock to sit on and lit up the last of my tobacco reserves.

“Oh I was only being obtuse, son. I know you bought some extra cantrips. Seriously, show me what you got. Might end up being useful, somehow.”

Something I barely registered as disdain passed across the boy’s features before he finally relented, as I knew he would. Throwing him a bone was so easy. He thinks he can impress me. Adorable.

Henrique sat cross-legged on the rocky ground at my feet and displayed his cantrips. Not much worth expounding on. He could grow grass, about a square foot a few inches in a minute. Useless, though impressive they had some Druidic stuff to sell. I assured him it would help keep the horses fed. His next parlor trick let him turn a small patch of any surface dark, like no light was hitting it.

“That some weird Lightbearer one?” I asked. I’d never seen something quite like that before.

“Nope. Merchant said he bought it from some growing Commune, other side of Cuinn Mountains. Shadow-Themed, darkness admirers, whatnot. Only a few hundred strong, but they’re getting fresh followers, donating all their inherent Apples. Dealer said they’d been real friendly sorts.”

“Ah-huh.” I’d already lost interest. “Still, must have come at a hell of a cost. What’d you pay for it, and what’s the power?”

Henrique tilted his head back, his mouth gaping open as he stared at nothing. Numbers. The poor boy has no mind for them.

“The-uhh…” He gaped a bit more. “I paid seventeen Pears, four Oranges for it… It’s about half an Apple per minute, is what he said.”

“Ah.” Honestly not such a bad exchange rate, but I didn’t bother him with that observation.

“Cant they think of a better name for the money? Is it always the same amount of Apples for each Pear?"

I sighed. Youth these days. Financially hopeless.

“It’s been standardized near eighty years now,” I said, and not unkindly despite my exasperation. “Measuring power by how many apples you could theoretically lift, has been around since the beginning of the Second Round, for Humans at least. Now that we can have a proper, sensible economy, I suppose they just wanted to stay with the theme. So you traded money, counted in Oranges and Pears, for Power counted in Apples.. It's always been ten Oranges for each Pear, but to compare either of them to Apples? Pointless. Exchange rate is always fluctuating And then there’s the actual fruits, but that’s not really important. Get it?”

“Ahuh,” Henrique muttered. He’d started growing the grass again halfway through. “I see.” He didn’t.

So, just to bother him, I threw in a bit extra.

“So you could buy some apples with Oranges and Pears, though you couldn’t lift the apples unless you paid for real Apples but then you’d have no Oranges left to pay for the apples in the first place.”

“Except most power doesn’t even let you lift Apples anymore,” Henrique said. “Contracts are too restricted. Like this stuff.” He wiggled his fingers, and the grass-tower he’d been working on grew a few inches higher. “Still neat though.”

I nodded, musing about the twisting state of economics, but decided against sharing. The boy clearly had understood some of it, surprisingly enough. If it hadn’t been for that blunder with the spigot, and his annoying mouth, this could have been a positive experience. I leaned back into the rock, glad Henrique seemed eager to fiddle with his little illegal cantrips, and huffed out the last dregs of smoke from my pipe. Nothing like a little Daedrus Dokha to round out a trip.

After a time a certain satisfying, eldritch and unfailingly fear-inducing scream spewed from the cave. Dragon’s fire erupted within, but that was no cause for concern. Moments later a deep rumbling flap brought it up into the sky from some secondary entrance, its vague silhouette desperately escaping towards the approaching night. I took an extra deep huff and gave the bastard a nod. Hope it starves.

“Does it always just run away like that?” Henrique asked, adding to his pile of grown and torn grass blades.

“Every time.”

“Why? Aren’t they, like, strong?"

“Oh yes, Dragons are fucking terrifying. Don’t ever try what Raufa just did, you’d get cooked and eaten. So would I. But our technique takes all that into account. You see…” I gestured in the air, trying to think of the words without giving away too much. “Think about it like this. Imagine some rat comes scurrying into your bed while you’re sleeping. It doesn’t bite you or shit on you, the sort of thing you could handle. No, it goes right for the worst thing imaginable. It starts messing with your good bits, all nasty like, and in some way not even you understand. All of a sudden you’re awake, you’ve wet the bed and you’re hurt in a real bad place. Not even a Dragon can muster wherewithal to handle that, at least not right away. No, Henrique, in a situation like that, no-one would do anything piss yourself more, run away and cry.”

I stood, donned my hat and tapped out my pipe. It had ran out ages ago anyway. “Raufa’ll be done soon. Let’s get the sledge ready and be on our way before the light’s gone.”

“So wait, that’s it?” Henrique asks. The dying sun cast his face in equal parts dark and light, his lips illuminated as they pouted at the cave. “You really just go in there, fiddle with the dragon, and pees and runs away?”

“Ye. We collect the piss, distill it and sell it for massive profit, yeah.”

“There’s no secret or anything?”

I laughed, once, very hard.

“Of course there’s a secret,” I said. “A goddamn art to it. Raufa’s the artist. I just found the technique.”

Henrique’s dismay deepened. “But how… I don’t get it.”

“There’s really nothing to get. Profit, my boy. It’s all about profit.”

Henrique didn’t say much after that, thankfully. Something about the experience seemed to upset him a bit. Not sure why. The twins had been so damned naggy about finally joining Raufa and I. What were they expecting? We’re Dragon Piss Merchants for Sun’s sake. There’s no glory, only profit. The boy didn’t even have to get his hands dirty yet. Should have brought May instead.

Raufa returned, completely drenched in a bile-yellow coating, accompanied by that nose-rotting scent. Henrique vomited twice before we’d managed to get his scented rag on him.

Raufa, unmasked, glanced once at Henrique, smirked and started unloading the sloshing containers onto the sled. Under the shelter of the overhang I activated the Water-Spout Contract to wash her down a bit, gave her a cloth and a set of new clothes. Within ten minutes she was changed and off we went, merrily down the mountain once more, old grandfather Sun at our sides as he spun us out into the broad, airy evening on the plains.

Safely home with dark well into its swing, we unloaded the haul, Raufa had a proper wash, we ate some leftover supper.. Total haul, about seven gallons. Now that’s a fine load of piss.