I was at home prowling the streets of the Lower District. The smell of garbage was nostalgic. The beggars shied away from me, recoiling at the sight of the half-elf with the hard-edged smile and wild glint in his eyes.

There was a purpose behind my journey into this side of town. I was reminded with each clink of my almost empty coin purse. The guards who saved me from the fire had also taken their fee while I was knocked out. Now, I needed money and fast.

In the capital, there were a few ways to get rich quick. One way was to steal from someone richer than you. The idea had its appeal but also its downsides. Anyone worth stealing from would be landowners and, therefore, mages. There was still too much I didn't know about the other Landbound to take that risk. The other reason was more obvious: I was the only half-elf in a city that hated elves. One slip-up and I would be sent to the kennel. That left me with one other option.

I stopped in front of a large, rustic building with a sign hanging over the entrance that said The Gentleman's Rest. It was unlike any other building in the capital, made of thick, old logs that had seen the rise of Peter Luskaine. If the rumours were true, the first King of Luskaine chose to die here so his spirit could get a drink even in death.

Off to my left, a brown boar with saddlebags strapped to its sides gave me a wary look. I locked eyes with the creature, who met my gaze with a level stare.

I was in the right place.

As I walked through the entrance, the chatter of large crowds and the smell of cheap ale bombarded me. Beer-stained tables sat in neat rows as servers darted between the rowdy customers who filled their seats. At the side of the hall was a bar for those sober enough to walk to make their orders. A large bulletin board stood beside the bar, ignored in the festivities. That was the reason I was here.

Adventure halls were a staple in every major city in Luskaine. They were places where mercenaries and adventurers gathered to take on job requests. The Gentleman's Rest was one of the most famous adventure halls in the country. I remembered Gren’s stories about this place back in my dishwashing days.

I shook off my nostalgia and walked to the bulletin board to see the job requests. The requests were open-ended contracts made and enforced by the Sanctifiers Guild. The Guild made sure both sides of a contract were happy at the requestor's expense. If either side cheated a contract, a Sanctifier inquisitor would hunt them down and unleash brutal retribution.

Halfway to the board, three men blocked my path. A heavy-set man with a strong jaw and a wide mouth led the way. At his side was a wiry, grey-haired man and a boy a few years younger than me.

"An elf?" the heavy-set man said, twisting his wide mouth in distaste. "We don't like fence-sitters round here. Got a tax for em. Pay up."

"Yeah, pay up!" The boy said.

My shoulders sagged.

What did I say again? Right, one slip-up.

The last thing I needed was a bar fight.

"What's you're name, friend?"

I forced a smile at the heavy-set man.

"Took."

"Well, Took. It hasn't been a great day. If you don't mind, I'm just going to walk around you and-"

"Not until you pay up."

His friends stepped forward, creating a semicircle with me in the middle. I should have paid them, stayed quiet, and stayed out of trouble. Who was I kidding? I was hungry, tired, and looking for someone to hurt.

I sighed, shoved my right hand into my coat's interior chest pocket, and undid the opening of its secret compartment in the same motion.

"How much do I owe you?" I said through my forced smile.

"How much do you have?"

I grabbed a fistful of sand from my secret compartment and threw the powder in Took’s eyes. My right arm swung down in one smooth motion, slipping my throwing knife into my hand. I sent it into the wrist of the grey-haired man's sword arm. As he recoiled, my left hand twisted my short sword free from my cane and pointed it in the boy's face. I held up my right hand in a pacifying gesture.

"Easy. Easy. It was only a jest."

The boy barely heard me over Took’s screams. His face was stuck between fear and anger. If anger won, I would have to make a choice.

Was I ready to go that far?

As the boy's face twisted to anger, a loud, clear voice cut over the hall's chatter.

"STOP!"

The boy froze, letting go of the machete sheathed on his hip.

From the other end of the hall, a man with a shock of iron-grey hair got to his feet. He was of average height, but the width of his shoulders cleared a path as other patrons leaned out of the way. As he approached, metal jingled with each step. His storm-blue eyes fixed on me as he ran thick fingers through his mustache. This man was strong. The kind of strength built through hours of manual labour. He cupped Took's chin and examined his eyes.

"Some jest."

The sand was cut with powdered glass. The more you rubbed your eyes, the more it would tear into your soft tissue. I suppressed a smile.

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"You should get him to a healer," I said.

"Right... Let's go, boys!"

My head turned as a chorus of chair legs scraped across the floor, and half the hall got to their feet.

A vice-like hand patted me hard on my shoulder.

"What's your name, son?"

"Jacob... Jacob Sin."

"Jacob Sin. I'll remember that. We'll keep the knife as payment for the eyes. It's good steel. Fair?"

"Fair."

"Good."

He walked out. Took's friends followed behind, guiding the blinded man out the door. Next, a collection of street toughs and gnarled, grey-haired men passed by me. If I had to guess, the old men were veterans of the ongoing border war with Dahlgesh. That would explain why Took called me a fence-sitter.

My stomach growled. The board could wait.

I walked up to the bar and sat in front of a gruff, bear-sized barkeep.

"Food, please."

"What kind?"

"Whatever is cheapest."

"That'll be five copper pieces."

I laid out the coins from my ever-shrinking coin purse. With my other hand, I clutched the emergency bundle of coins sewn into one end of my belt sash. At least the guards hadn’t found my hidden funds.

A few moments later, the barkeeper returned with a bowl of warm gruel—orphan food. This better not be a sign of things to come. As I lapped up the first few spoonfuls of gruel, another customer approached the bar.

"Can I buy a drink for the dead man?" she asked.

I turned and looked up. The woman would tower over me at my full height. She brushed aside her black, tousled hair to reveal a fair face and steel-grey eyes. My eyes fixed on the scar across the bridge of her nose, the nicks and cuts on her hands and the longsword on her hip. The last thing I needed in my life was another dangerous woman.

A moment later, I sensed a presence behind me. I turned and looked down. The man was a head shorter than me. His steady, brown eyes were the calm in a storm of curly brown hair that covered his head and half his face. I focused on his thick arms, and the bearded axe looped into his belt.

"How dead I'm I?" I asked the strange woman.

"That depends. The man you angered is Rugar Centovian; he owns half the forges in the capital. His apprentices do most of the work now, so he spends his days playing general with whoever he can pick up from the taverns."

I sighed. A bored and rich craftsman with a personal army and the means to arm them. You know how to pick your enemies, Jacob.

The woman's lips spread into a wry grin.

"A lad in your position could use some friends."

I eyed her.

"And why would you want to be friends with me?"

"Most mages who walk in here are the pampered second sons of nobles and merchants. They're quick to give orders and don't have steel in their spines when the weapons get drawn. You're different. You stared down three of Rugar's goons. You're either brave or broke."

"Maybe I'm both."

"You do have an air of desperation about you, among other things."

She wrinkled her nose as she leaned forward to sniff my ash-smudged coat.

“How do you know I’m a mage?”

She shrugged.

“A guess. You look like you come from money.”

I took another spoonful of flavourless gruel, chewing water as I thought of my next question.

"And why should I be your friend?"

She flashed me a broad smile and moved her hand to my shoulder, plucking something off my coat. My eyes widened as she placed a small sewing needle on the bar's counter.

"You took out three of his men, so he’ll take his time coming for you. My guess is he would have used this as a tracker to find where you slept and sent men to visit you tonight. If you were smart, you would leave town."

I gulped down my gruel. I should have anticipated the tracker, but I was hungry, tired and making excuses.

"I owe you… uh-"

"Castille Ironside," she said, reaching to shake my hand.

"Jacob Sin."

I turned to the man on my other side.

"And you are?"

"He’s Dugan Samaran," Castille said.

"Does he speak?"

"When he wants to."

I turned back to the man. He met my eyes with a calm gaze. Whatever he was, he wasn’t a coward.

"Now that we’re over formalities, what kind of mage are you?" Castille asked.

"I don't know. I became one a few hours ago."

She laughed, a deep, hardy tone from her belly.

"No wonder you're so worn down; you played with the house of deals. Didn't anyone tell you the house always wins?”

"My cook used to have debts with them... He's gone now."

The amusement left Castille's face.

“I’ll be frank. I like you, Jacob. You have skills, and you remind me of home."

"Home? You're from Western Luskaine?"

"Northwest. I'm from a village near the Great Northwestern Forest, the last enclave of the elves."

My stomach sank. That's where Cynthia wanted to visit.

"See many half-elves?"

"All the time. We trade goods with the elves. Sometimes, the trading caravans stay overnight."

"Is that where I'm from?" I said to myself.

"What was that?"

"Nothing. I guess you're forming a party for a job request?"

"Aye."

She pulled a folded job request sheet out of her pants pocket and flattened it on the bar table with both hands. I leaned over to examine it, eyes gravitating to the top left corner.

Gren told me how it worked. Each quarter, the Sanctifiers reviewed the open job requests in their records. They contacted the requestor to see if the request should remain active. If the requestor said no, the request would be closed. If the requestor said yes, the job request would stay active, and the contract would be reprinted for a fee. The number of reprints was marked at the top left corner of the sheet. For a mostly illiterate population, the number of reprints gave a rough idea of a request's difficulty.

As I examined the sheet, my eyebrows shot up. Castille’s job request had a reprint number in the triple digits!

I did the math.

"This job request is over a hundred years old!"