The worn floorboards creaked underfoot as Oralia navigated the long hallway of the Copperstone Inn. She glimpsed the dark night sky from a passing window as she turned the final corner towards her room. It was well past midnight, judging from the position of the stars. The inn was blessedly quiet, with the majority of its guests having fallen asleep hours ago. The tantalizing visions of a soft bed and warm fire drifted through her mind as she reached the last room at the end of the long hall.

The tarnished handle turned when she gripped it, but the door itself refused to budge. Oralia tried again to no avail. So much for sneaking in quietly. Stifling a roar, she put her shoulder to the wood and shoved with all her might. The stubborn, paint-chipped door held fast for only a second before swinging open with a groaning protest. Rubbing the soreness from her shoulder, Oralia trudged inside, depositing her jacket onto the powder blue, high back chair as she passed.

Her current living quarters constituted a generous sized suite, complete with a cozy breakfast nook, sitting area, fireplace, and a private bathroom that housed its own, woefully undersized, copper tub. Currently, her quarters smelled strongly of cedar embers and smoke. There was an additional scent as well–strong, like pine, but with faint undertones of stale beer. While the aroma was familiar to her, it did not belong in the privacy of her bedroom.

“Ralizak?” Oralia called, scouring the room for the source of the scent. The candles were unlit, but the smoldering fire highlighted the apartment in a warm, red-orange glow.

“The conquering orc hath returned!” Rali’s drowsy voice hailed from one of the overstuffed chairs in the sitting area.

“Why are you still here?” Oralia hadn’t meant it to sound rude, but it came out that way regardless. At the moment, all she wanted to do was leave her trousers in a pile on the floor and pull Sascha into bed with her. And while this was certainly doable with Rali in the room, she feared she wouldn’t find it nearly as restful with the dwarf watching.

“And stay awake all night tossing and turning, wondering what sort of trouble you got us talked into? Nah.” Rali popped up over the back of the chair situated strategically in front of the glowing embers. The dwarf rested her chin in her hands and smiled. “Besides, someone had to stay and keep an eye on your fuckmate. Make sure no one tried to sneak in and take him for a nice gallop around the courtyard.”

Sascha was sprawled across the couch catty corner to Rali. There was a book resting over his face. His voice emitted from beneath the pages at a weak groan. “I am her Sunflower, thank you. And I have no idea what the galloping part was referring to, but I am not a child. I need no watching.”

“You held a twenty minute conversation with the coat rack, bucko.”

“Need no watching,” he reiterated with a low rumble.

“Keep telling yourself that, Sunflower. Whatever makes you feel better.” Some of the smile slipped from Rali’s face as her attention switched back to Oralia. “Well don’t leave me waiting in suspense forever. How’d the war council go?”

Oralia’s stare shifted to the small breakfast table, noticing the ominous stack of loose papers awaiting her. “I would not know. I am not involved in any wars.”

“Yeah, yeah, we’ve all heard your spiel,” Rali said. “Let’s skip to the part that involves us. How many more realm nests did you agree to flush out before we can call our volunteer work here done for good?”

Oralia dropped into the wooden chair beside the table and slumped uncomfortably low. She pressed her fingertips against her forehead and massaged the aching flesh with slow, deep circles. “Yesterday’s settlement was the last. There are no more nests to be flushed.”

“That’s it then? Our part’s done?” Sascha jetted upright, uncaring of the open book that spilled from his face and tumbled to the ground. His sable eyes were large and rimmed in white, looking nearly as hopeful as he sounded. “We can actually retire now?”

“Ha! Come on, Sunflower. Don’t be so naive. You know they had to have offered her a position. The real question is whether or not it was good enough to get her to bite.”

Even now, after everything they’d accomplished together, Rali seemed to believe Oralia was incapable of putting her foot down when she wanted to. Ordinarily Oralia would have turned the overt lack of faith into an argument, but she was simply too exhausted to put up a fight. She sank lower in the chair, sighing, “They did. I refused.”

Sascha rolled his head back and thundered, “We’re finished. Finally!”

Oralia winced as the surrounding walls protested Sascha’s volume with a rattle. “There is still the matter of deciding where we go from here, but yes. We are finished.”

The rest of Rali’s smile drained from her weary face. It wasn’t merely exhaustion that had sapped her of her usual charm and wit. Oralia saw worry weighing heavy within her dark eyes. “You know I’m not one to volunteer us for more work,” the dwarf said. “But before we make any life altering decisions, you might want to have a look at those papers first.”

“If it is another call-to-arms from Larkspur, I am not reading it.”

“Worse than that, I’m afraid.”

Reluctantly, Oralia sat straighter and reached for the yellowed pages. Wanted posters, she realized, as she leafed through the stack. Each page consisted of a brief description, a crudely inked portrait of the outlaw in question, and the promised amount for their eventual capture. The face on the third page caused Oralia’s steady hand to falter. Blinking back the hurt, she separated Curly’s poster from the others and placed it facedown, away from her.

Surely the realm already knew of his death. Oralia wondered if they kept printing his likeness simply as a means to torment her.

Rali’s dark eyes moved from the lone sheet back to Oralia, explaining, “Captain Bernstein gave me the stack before dinner. A patrol found them posted along the border near Mossborn. He thought they’d make good souvenirs.”

“Are you upset that they depicted you with a monobrow? Or that Ellisar’s bounty is worth more than yours?”

“Both, actually. Thanks for noticing. Not why I showed them to you, though. Take a gander at the last page.”

Oralia flipped through once more to the end. She studied the portrait as confusion wrinkled across her brow. “They put out a bounty for Faris?”

“Reward, not bounty. Apparently we kidnapped the little sprout and held him against his will. The money is to ensure he’s found and freed of our oppression,” Rali paraphrased from memory. “Check the amount. He’s worth twice what they’re willing to fork over for the rest of us. With the stipulation that he must be returned to the capital alive.”

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“We did not abduct Faris. He went home.”

“Well obviously we know that.”

Oralia sat quiet for a moment as she considered what this was supposed to be telling her. A thought flickered in the back of her overworked brain and she shuffled back through the stack of posters. A second and third check confirmed her suspicions. “There’s no bounty on Rasp. Not even an honorary mention. Why would they go to the effort to list his brothers but not him? He is the one they really want.”

In the four months since the battle on Mount Hook, the stories of what took place grew more far-fetched and fantastical with each retelling. The cursed mountain folk heir, Rasp Stoneclaw, was rumored to have obliterated an entire realm army, his own people, sometimes a dragon, and–according to the latest version of the tale–the undead army of the seventh realm of chaos itself. Virtually overnight, Rasp had unwittingly become the most wanted witch on the entire continent. Geralt Lazuli and the Division of Divination had exhausted their combined resources tearing the realm apart looking for him. Oralia herself had not heard from either Rasp nor Whisper. The lack of communication was intentional, she suspected. If no one, not even their allies, knew of their whereabouts, the pair could weather the oncoming storm undisturbed.

“Geralt’s figured out what the rest of us already knew,” Rali explained. “If there’s one person capable of drawing Rasp out of hiding, it’s Faris. I think this is Geralt’s attempt to find him before we caught on.”

“Have there been any communications from Faris?” Oralia knew he had returned home to Lonebrook, but that was the extent of her knowledge on the matter.

“Not a peep, actually.”

The page crumpled in Oralia’s tightly clenched hand as her mind raced with possibilities. Here she thought she’d been the one distracting Geralt Lazuli but, as usual, the snake had been working his own angle. Geralt didn’t want her, nor her people, not as badly as he wanted Rasp. Oralia’s head amounted to little more than a trophy to be mounted on a stake. She was a nuisance, yes, but incapable of leveling an entire city without an army. Rasp was the real prize. And, somehow, someway, Geralt had discovered the key to getting exactly what he wanted.

“Faris’s last known whereabouts was Lonebrook,” Oralia said. Home would have been the first place Geralt went looking for him. The evidence of the posters, however, suggested Faris was no longer there. The question then became: where had he gone?

”Have we received any news from the area?” Oralia asked. “The village maybe? His family?”

“The territory’s been flooded with realm forces trying to keep it from going belly up like Adderwood. As far as the village itself, it’s been eerily quiet. Nothing in, nothing out. I assumed the Belfast family was staying low, trying to ride out the impending rebellion unnoticed, but I’m starting to think their silence might be something more sinister.”

“Sinister how?” Oralia sensed she already knew the answer but hoped, secretly, that Rali would prove her hunch wrong.

The dwarf outlined her thought process with an idle flick of her hand. “If I were Geralt, I wouldn’t waste my time hunting Faris down. Not when I know he’s got a family and whole village of people he cares about. I’d take them hostage instead. Lure the rat back to the nest, so to speak.”

Hope sank in Oralia’s chest. “I was afraid you were going to say that.”

“If we were to get involved, completely hypothetically speaking, of course, we would have quite a dilemma on our hands.” Rali’s gaze swept aimlessly across the sparsely lit apartment as she spoke, purposely avoiding eye contact. “Our main objective would be to find Faris before Geralt does, obviously. But, in order to do so, we’d have to go talk to the people most likely to know where he’s hiding. Those same people are probably under heavy surveillance right now.”

“Lonebrook would be crawling with soldiers,” Oralia said. “Going anywhere near there would be walking right into Geralt’s trap.”

“Not if we use our heads. The surrounding area is dense forest. Wouldn’t be too hard to smuggle a small team over the border and investigate from a distance.”

It was possible, Oralia conceded. Unfortunately, this realization only served to make her decision more difficult. Had the plan been unfeasible from the start, there would have been no obligation to try. “...Are we actually considering this?”

Sascha’s head lifted, the hope slowly draining from his expression.

Rali pretended to be more nonchalant over the matter. “I mean, hypothetically, sure.”

“Ralizak, we cannot hypothetically get involved. We either do or we do not.” Oralia paused, almost reluctant to say her next words. Here she had thought they were finally retiring and, already, she could feel the dream slipping from her grasp. “I thought we wanted to be done with the fighting.”

“It’s not the fighting I object to, boss. It’s the damn politics that muddy the waters. I’ll hack and slash with you any day of the week.”

Gods dammit. Rali was normally more combative than this. She could always be counted on to provide an extensive list as to why they didn’t need to volunteer for more unpaid charity. “Are you saying you want to do this?”

“I don’t know what I want, alright?” Rali threw her hands into the air as she sank lower in the chair until only the top of her head was visible. “It just feels, I don’t know, kind of bad? We should have been keeping a better watch on Faris. And now he’s gone missing, with gods knows how many people looking for him. His village is probably being overrun right now, and here we are none the wiser, looking like complete assholes who don’t give a shit! He may not be family, but he’s damn close, and you don’t abandon family.”

“That’s what’s eating at you?” Sascha was unable to contain his thoughts on the matter any longer. “Not the part where Geralt is going to use Faris to lure Rasp right into his trap? The rumors have gotten out of hand, no question, but we all saw what the boy could do. He’d be devastation incarnate in the wrong hands.”

This was not the sort of objection Oralia was hoping for.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Sascha continued, “the last thing I want to do is get involved in another cause, but keeping Rasp out of enemy hands seems like a disaster worth preventing. Frankly, I’m just relieved the two of you are involving me in this conversion for a change.”

“Sunflower strikes an excellent point, Oralia,” Rali said, voice muffled slightly due to the fact she had her face buried in the back of the overstuffed chair. “We need to do this, not for ourselves, for the betterment of the people or whatever.”

“That is not what I said.”

“Plain as day, big fella. We all heard you. Your argument is rock solid, too. I could squabble all night as to why getting involved is a shit idea, but I know when I’m beaten. You win. It’s decided. We’ve got to find Faris and spare the world of the impending Rasp disaster.”

Sascha crossed his burly arms and scowled. “I don’t like that you’re pinning this on me.”

“Fine.” Rali’s hand popped up from over the back of the chair, gesturing vaguely in Oralia’s direction. “We’ll pin it on her then. She makes a good scapegoat.”

“I have not yet decided anything,” Oralia reminded them with an irritated click of her tusks.

Sascha stood, catching himself against the back of the couch as he lumbered towards the breakfast table. “In that case, I may as well start drafting a supply list for the journey.”

“As far as I am concerned, we are simply thinking out loud.” Oralia’s glare settled on the back of Rali’s chair, attempting to bore holes through it in order to reach her lieutenant. “Some of us are merely speaking with more confidence than they rightfully should.”

“Oh, Moonflower.” Sascha caressed the top of her head as he stumbled past. “There’s no use pretending you haven’t already reached a decision. Everyone here knows your personal mantra by now: straight out of the frying pan into the fire. Seeing as our work here is done, it’s high time we find you another fire.”

Oralia’s jaw dropped in disbelief. “Excuse me? The two of you devised this plan. I will not be blamed for this decision.”

“Such a bleeding heart,” Sascha crooned.

“It’s contagious, unfortunately,” Rali agreed. “We find it impossible to tell you no sometimes.”

This was no longer a battle or words, but an all out massacre. What’s worse, Oralia found herself on the losing side. “If you must know, yes, I think locating Faris and keeping him from Geralt is the right thing to do. But there is no reason to act rash in the matter. I maintain we should sit on decision for a few days, truly consider our options, weigh the consequences, and, when the time is right–”

“Yep, sounds great.” Rali slid from the chair and swaggered towards the door with her thumbs hooked in her belt loops. “You do that, boss. I’m going to get some shuteye before our grand departure tomorrow.”

“No one said we are leaving tomorrow!”

“You hear that sizzling sound, Sascha?” Rali called over her shoulder as she drew open the creaky door with a strong tug.

“Indeed. Just about ready for the flames, I’d say.”

Oralia crossed her arms with a huff. “I refuse to engage when the two of you gang up on me like this.”

“You drive a hard bargain, Moonflower. But dammit, if you aren’t convincing.” Rali’s voice echoed from the hallway as she disappeared from sight. “Say the word and we’ll follow you all the way to the gates of chaos and back!”

“No.”

“What’s that? Go? You got it, boss!”