There was a casual knocking on the back door, but discerning who it was wasn’t too hard, given how seldom that door rang. Sama eased up on her hammering slowly as one of the apprentices not doing something vital hurried to the back door.

“Morning, Gunter,” came a very deep bass from outside.

“Let me get the garage door, Mohono,” the apprentice dwarf replied quickly, hurrying over and hitting the switch that sent the stout metal bands of the delivery door rolling upwards smoothly.

The panel truck in the back edged back right to the edge of the floor. A massive figure swung over onto it before the gap closed, straddling the opening until it was at the last three inches and halted.

Mohono Blakhamar, a rare half-ogre, loomed over everyone at nearly eight feet tall. His skin was purple, his head was bald, his pupils were white, and he had two jutting tusks, slightly yellow, extending up from his lower jaw. He even had small horns curling around and down from his temples.

He was built far leaner and longer than most of his or his father’s breed, and many likened him to a troll more than an ogre. His birth had killed his mother, and his father had been a shapechanging oni, long vanished and never seen since. Hank Blakhamar had taken him in like so many other orphans, and, it was reputed, had to raise the ceilings in his home to ten feet to accommodate the growing ogryn.

Grik Blakhamar, the driver, entered through the access door of the truck. He was urkhar, a trueborn half-orc; his father had served with one of the Blackhamar boys, and died in the line of duty. He had been brought home to Hank, and raised as one of them.

Grik had the prominent undertusks of his people, a good three inches long, and a tiny ruby set into each one of them, earning him the nickname of Redfang after he bit off the face of a mage who had tried to ensorcel him.

Whatever the Blackhamars fed their kids, they all grew up brawny and pugnacious, and Gagrik was no different. He had the feral air of a berserker about him, and even Mohono would have a hard time holding him back if something threatened the family that had taken him in.

He also loved vehicles, especially big powerful trucks and street rods, and was a very gifted Driver, able to manhandle heavier vehicles than most of his competition.

He and his younger brother Mohono had formed a delivery service for the dwarven community, bringing in regular orders of special goods, especially metal bars, chunks of ore, specialty woods and leathers, and other things for the dwarven crafters. While many of the dwarven elders of other families were a bit leery about dealing with non-dwarves, the Blakhamar boys never had any problem with them. Blackhamars could brawl with you, then drink with you like the best of dwarves.

It was noteworthy that they didn’t need any extra guards when escorting what were definitely valuable items. Although they didn’t transport things like pure gold or gems except rarely, having the red-irised, yellow-eyed urukhar standing a head taller than many humans step out of his custom cabin, and then his little brother standing head AND shoulders above him, tended to dissuade a lot of people from casual violence.

If not, either of the lads tearing an arm off someone would probably do the job, too, or maybe they might unlimber their 10-gauge personal defense cannons and blow the chuckleheads through a wall. Both things had happened in the past. Both of them had notoriously short tempers for being taunted, and word had gotten around.

Their boss came out last.

Shiv Blackhamar was halvyri, but didn’t have much of the graceful beauty of the elven. She had a face like a hatchet, dark eyes like soulless pools of hurt, and moved like someone about to put a knife into you if you looked at her wrong. She didn’t have much skill with the arcane magic most halvyr did, meaning she was a specialist of the Scout Triad, specializing in Illusion, Divination, and Transmutation, with a focus on dimension-hopping magic. She was a Scout Primary, a very street-smart and dangerous young woman who had seen some appalling things at a very young age.

According to Mord, one of their older brothers had found her living on the street, brought her home, and it had taken her a month to talk to anyone. Their father had found out her backstory, but he never told anyone, and pressing too hard about it was a good way to get her finger in your eye, if not one of the knives she was very, very good with.

She had grown up, gone into the military, served somewhere doing some violent things, and come back up home, eyes darker than ever, back with a whole lot of brothers and sisters with pasts as sad as her own.

People liked to say the Blakhamar boys would just tear you apart and kill you bloodily for crossing them, but Shiv would sit there and bleed you for three days. Given how respectfully her brothers treated her, Sama didn’t have any trouble believing it.

She was also aware that all three brothers here had mad crushes on Sama, and Shiv really didn’t know what to think of a young woman who was actively Cursed and so looked even worse than she did... and had also proved to be downright lethal.

The Blakhamars being so heavy on odd non-dwarves, Sama had been adopted as an honorary Blakhamar after they learned she had no family to return to (and, she suspected, because they wanted to boast about adding a Hagchild to the family). They certainly stuffed her full of everything when she stopped by, but she never gained a pound, not that the boys minded a bit.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

They naturally poked their heads into the main smithing room, one above the other, and beamed when they saw her at work there. “Hey, Sama, wanna help unload?” Grik instantly called out.

Sama rolled her wicked eye at them, which only made them grin the wider. She moved the much-abused bar from the Anvil to her Forge, turning the flames down, and dusted off her hands. “Sure. You feebs can’t do anything without me, eh?”

Their faces were almost splitting with their grins.

She pretended to ignore the dwarves maneuvering to get into position to watch the show. She saw Shiv roll her eyes and reach out to touch Grik.

Two Gravities was a Valence I spell that effectively doubled Might for purposes of lifting and carrying, and would, for instance, allow someone to wield a heavier weapon than normal, but otherwise didn’t add much to combat.

Grik took the position inside the truck, Mohono took the middle, and Sama moved into the end.

Starting a cheerful tune in Jotun that she had taught them both, and which only strapping fellows with their lungpower and size could even attempt to sing properly, Grik began grabbing the securely-packed, hundred-pound cases of ingots, ores, and other things. He slung them to Mohono, who caught them easily in his massive hands and long arms, and easily sent them arcing on through the air to Sama.

Sama caught them easily, like she was catching softballs, politely placing them into their proper places on the walls and floor with a step or two, stepping around the room to get to the right spots. If the next case had to hurtle twenty or thirty feet through the air to get to her, she still caught it, and skated it over to its proper place smoothly.

Three tons and more of delivery cases went flying through the air, and she caught them all and put them in place smoothly. The watching apprentices, including Mord, were grinning cheerfully, and even Master Vrune was only pretending to be mad at the interruption to their routine.

They all cheered when the trio were done, and then all but Gunter hurried back to their jobs. The fact that Master Vrune was positioned nicely to watch the show, and they’d left a space so he could, escaped nobody, but nobody dared to say anything about it, either.

“Hey, Shiv.” Sama plucked up the clipboard with the invoice before Gunter could grab it, ran her finger down the list item by item, then handed it to Gunter with a nod. The senior dwarf apprentice quickly signed and thumb-stamped it, heading off to write her a check. “What got you riding along with these two brutes?” Sama hooked a thumb at the two brothers coming up beaming, tusks and fangs all on display.

Shiv still wasn’t used to dealing with someone who was probably more dangerous than she was, but Sama was so blunt most of the time it impressed even dwarves just how fearlessly outspoken she could be... and how much verbal abuse she could take without batting an eye, or changing her beliefs.

That, and her ability to knock heads, earned a lot of respect from the dwarves and their kind, and even Shiv had to respect that.

“Well, since you’re here, listen up.” The boys leaned over eagerly, Shiv despite herself. They listened closely as Sama described what she had found a few miles over thataway, and where it had led to.

The smiles on the boys’ faces had completely fallen away by the time she finished.

Shiv’s nostrils flaring was her only sign of emotion, but anyone who knew her knew it was a danger sign.

“They’ll be finding a new cook, and probably a new drug soon enough. You know Klitza?” Shiv nodded shortly. The rogue werewolf hacker was another one of the random oddballs who tended to collect in the Blakhamar orbit. “She’s got the phones. If you can think of a cute way to reverse track the distribution network from them, I’m of the opinion they might have a serious case of overindulging in their personal products. But...” I said sharply, “don’t go up the chain. You don’t have the Div Wards to stop them from tracking you.”

Shiv looked away, calculating. “I have someone I can call,” she said shortly. Her empty black eyes looked at her brothers. “You didn’t hear nuthin.”

The guileless expressions of complete idiots settled over the faces of both of them with the ease of long practice. “Huh? What sexy woman say, Moho?” Grik asked, pointing dumbly.

“She needs to repeat it for us slow-witted buffoons, dear brother mine,” the towering ogryn rumbled softly. “Something about acetylic acid and headaches, I think.”

“Oh.” Grik nodded his thick neck in agreement, and beamed again. Sama gave them eight canines, and the two almost swooned. “Lessons tonight?” he confirmed again.

“It IS Monday, isn’t it?” Sama said, rolling her eyes again. Grik chuckled and clenched his hands, and was shooed away with Mohono by Shiv’s stare.

“What else?” Shiv asked calmly.

“They called the phone, Klitza set up a false message, and traced it to 2143 Compton. If you could find out if there’s an Imprusar borrowing the place...”

Shiv blinked slowly. “It shouldn’t be difficult to find out who their lawn service is.”

Rich Powered could clean up their houses every day with a couple minutes and castings of Prestidigitation, and do the same for their pool with Purify Water Cantrips. But a big lawn? Nobody was going to walk around and snip three-meter radius circles end on end and mow their own lawn. Plus, it lost that nice lined look that came from having a proper mower do the job.

Lawn service crews were not Imprusar. Nobody that low in income or with such a menial job would dare to set foot in a church of Imprus.

Shiv knew a lot of people, many of them shady or with dangerous backgrounds. Even her family didn’t know where she spent all her time, or what she did with it. But she never brought that work home, ever.

It still brought her in contact with a lot of people, and it gave her a certain reputation.

Shiv’s sense of justice hovered somewhere around the level of the dirt on the soles of her boots. However, she took threats to her family, even implied ones at the fringes like the shit the Imprusar were pulling, with lethal seriousness.

Whoever this Imprusar was, he thought he was being sneaky and ruthless in pressing forwards the racist, elitist creed of his church.

Sama wanted to take him down for the vile shit he was pulling off. Shiv just thought he was a goddamn fool sticking his head down where he shouldn’t have, and it was going to get chopped off.

“Do you want me to arrange for his disappearance?” she asked flatly.

Sama considered that, and slowly shook her head. “This is a religious war; their doctrine is targeting all of us. If that’s the case, we might as well send a message to the faithful, right?”

Shiv considered that without a change in expression. “That sounds reasonable,” she said after a minute. “What kind of a message?”

“One of the things they were spiking the meth with was Apop. You know what that does to urukhar, right?” There was a glitter deep in Shiv’s eyes. She nodded, barely. Sama went on, “Actually it does that to just about anything sapient, if enough of it is pumped into their veins.”

Shiv considered Sama in a dark light. “I like it. Where do we let him wander?”

“I’m thinking one of their Sunday services could use a little livening up.”