Wellynd wasn’t a stranger to violence, but his stomach dropped at the sight before him.

At the far end of the bar lay a body slumped up against the wood panelling, legs spread, the man’s hollow eyes staring off into empty space. His neck, or what had once been his neck, was a mess of blood, his trachea completely eviscerated.

Drops of crimson rained down on the dead man’s knees as a hulking figure stood above him, ripped flesh clutched in his fist.

Wellynd looked around in horror at the other patrons, who, for the most part, having gone silent, stared at the scene briefly before turning back to their drinks and murmuring conversations.

Uncertain of how to react, Wellynd turned around and looked back at Slim, who was still eyeing the man, his gaunt face even paler than usual.

Swallowing a lump that had formed in his throat, he watched Slim's eyes follow something closer to their table, the ominous clomp of leather on stone drawing louder in his ears.

Then footfalls stopped.

Out of the corner of Wellynd’s eye, he made out an arm with strange black tattoos leaning onto the table.

Reluctantly, Wellynd turned.

The first and only thing Wellynd could focus on were the man’s eyes. Like two molten spheres they stared down at him, freezing him in place.

“Sorry about that gents. I’ll be right with you.” said the man, before turning around and walking out of sight behind the bar.

“Sure. No problem Tanner.” said Slim, his quivering voice calling after the man with little conviction.

Slim stared at the bar, lost for words, before another figure appeared in front of the table and promptly slid into the bench, jostling Slim out of his daze.

It was Trin.

Wellynd had met her on a few previous occasions. She was a strange sight to behold in southern Arta.

Sickly pale white skin, her dull, fine blonde hair stood out amid the darker hair and skin tones of the coastal port city. Her light grey irises, intensified by the heavy bags under her eyes, stared intently at Wellynd.

She grimaced at him before making a gesture to the barkeep with three fingers.

Wellynd’s stomach was reeling, his thoughts still lingering on the smell of blood coming from the large man, Tanner, as he’d drawn near.

Finally meeting Trin’s eyes, Wellynd opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted.

“He’s scared, eh Slim? I guess Tanner does that to runts like him.” said Trin, a small grin on her face, her nasally voice not all that different from her companion.

She continued “I don’t blame him. Who knows what Tanner’s gonna do. Boss wasn’t happy about the last delivery. Said rock boy here skimped him with some half-juiced stones. They ain’t even fetch close to what they shoulda. I’m wonderin’ if he’s imaginin’ what we do to him if he tries to pull that crap again.”

While she only addressed Slim, she kept her tired eyes trained on Wellynd. If he wasn’t still processing what he had just seen, Wellynd would have found it irritating.

He had to focus. This was typical Mox fashion. Maybe the dead guy was some sort of trick. He took another glance back at the bar. Two men were dragging the body towards another door at the back of the room.

Maybe not. It looked pretty real. He wiped his sweaty palms on his cloak under the table.

This was them trying to throw Wellynd off-balance. While this seemed like some sort of game, in reality The Mox needed Laine. Not the other way around. This is where he could find solace. There’s no way they would endanger that relationship by killing one of his delivery boys.

At least, he was pretty sure they wouldn’t.

If he’d be seeing more of the Mox from now on, he needed to show them they couldn’t intimidate him so easily.

He straightened up and turned back to Trin and feigned a half-smirk.

“You sure your boss didn’t just get scammed himself? Never heard of stones being half juiced. Your buyers probably just swindled your boss into selling them for less” said Wellynd.

Slim jumped up, his blade reappearing in his hand “Why you little runt. You think you can talk about our boss like that? I’m gunna slice you from neck to navel, then we’ll see what the Capt…” he said, spittle shooting out of his mouth.

“Shutup Slim, we know you aren’t going to do anything” scolded a voice from behind Wellynd. A moment later, a tray of drinks clattered onto the table and Slim’s anger sputtered, his expression quickly straightening as he sat back in his seat.

“No, Tanner, I just thought…”

“You don’t think. Obviously. Be useful. Go get Grug.”

Slim sat there a moment, clearly looking for support from Trin, who kept her head down, before throwing his own head back and jumping up onto the table. He walked straight across it, knocking Trin’s empty mug over, jumping back down on the other side and walking off.

“Now, Trin. Where were we? Were you giving Wellynd here a hard time?” asked Tanner, pulling up a chair and sitting at the head of the table.

Wellynd froze. It took all of his will to not break. Tanner used his name. They weren’t supposed to know his name.

Hesitantly, he looked at the massive man, ensuring he kept his face neutral.

Something had changed about the man.

Tanner’s eyes were now mere dying embers, darker and rusty, with flecks of their previous molten intensity. It allowed him to get a better look at the rest of him. A thick, unkempt beard covered the lower half of his face, its black strands showing the faintest white streaks. He combed his fingers, still speckled with blood, through it idly.

“Uh. Why do you call me that?” Wellynd replied.

Tanner smirked. “Come now. You think using your own name at the Crest’s was a smart move? Business must be good for the Captain if you’re able to afford such nice accommodations, eh?”

Wellynd silently cursed himself.

The man took a long draw from Slim’s ale.

“It’s okay, Wellynd. We just wanted to make sure you were clean before letting you into our little home.” he paused and scratched his beard before continuing “We haven’t met before. As I’m sure you’ve heard, I’m Tanner.”

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Tanner held out his hand.

As soon as he touched the proffered hand, Wellynd realised two things: the man’s skin was unusually coarse and scarred, and the sense of dread that sat deep in Wellynd’s stomach intensified.

Tanner smiled. “Now. Wellynd. Shall we get the transaction over with before we discuss other matters?”

His voice was eerily calm.

Wellynd shifted in his seat, scrunching his toes in his shoes.

“Uh. Sure.” replied Wellynd. He took the small pouch of stones out of his pocket and placed them on the table.

Trin looked at Tanner, who gave the slightest nod, before reaching her arm across the table and taking the stones out. She inspected each of the three closely and placed them in a neat line in front of her.

“They look fine.”

Tanner smiled. “Excellent. We are going to do a quick test, if you don’t mind, Wellynd.”

He really didn’t like how Tanner kept saying his name.

After several moments of strained silence and trying to look anywhere but Tanner’s eyes, Slim returned, followed by a man even larger than Tanner.

Grug.

Wellynd knew the man to be Mox Ambrum’s main muscle. He was also quite possibly the largest human being Wellynd had ever encountered.

The bear-like man gave Wellynd a brief nod and began pulling a small coil of thick twine out of his inner jacket while Trin pushed the stones across the table.

After a small flourish with his other hand, Grug held the twine out over the stones, letting a small, jagged jet crystal that was attached to the end of the twine hover over the stones.

The crystal began to rock back and forth over the skald, sometimes moving in a linear wave, sometimes moving in more of a pendulous circle. After about twenty seconds of this, Grug pulled the crystal away and gave a nod to Trin.

This was another one of the Mox’s tricks. As far as he knew, the crystal didn’t do anything.

In a way, he wasn’t witnessing anything different than what the peddlers in St. Francis square did, selling nothing but a performance with the hopes of playing on the viewer’s imagination. However, while the peddlers were selling hope in order to make a profit, the Mox were selling fear.

It had successfully scared Wellynd the first few times he saw it. He remembered how he’d taken less money because one of the stones “didn’t work”. Laine gave him an earful after that and told him that, while he didn’t know if they could tell, to never accept anything but the agreed upon price.

Shortly thereafter, Wellynd had done some investigating of his own and had found out that the whole thing was nonsense. He had asked Selkis at the Observatory if people could “detect” energy with such a ritual.

The Observer had flown into an uproar, raving about “Such utter chicanery” abounding amongst those happy to prey on others’ superstitions or ignorance of magic.

Subsequent deals with the Mox had confirmed Selkis’ allegations; the rest of the group were staring at Wellynd and not the stones during Grug’s little ritual, seeing if he would sweat or get agitated. He imagined the gang used this technique quite often, but he never let on that he knew.

“It seems the deal is good to move forward,” said Tanner. He took out a small pouch and slid it across the table. Wellynd took it and stored it in his cloak pocket.

“What did you want to talk about?” asked Wellynd, hoping to move things along.

Tanner leaned back and stretched, cracking his neck both ways. “The Boss has decided that we are going to start needing more skald. We want to increase both the quantity and frequency of purchase.”

“Tell the contact. I don’t know why you are telling me. I’m just the delivery boy.” replied Wellynd, hopefully sounding confident.

“I’m telling you. And that’s not all.” Tanner calmly replied “ The boss wants to, eventually, have a closer partnership with the Captain.” he smiled “we figure, we are all making money from this skald crap, why not run a more tight-knit operation? The Mox Ambrum are growing beyond Revenshore, Wellynd. We have big plans. We want the captain to be part of those plans. He would be able to lead the smuggling arm of our operation. He could be making much more than he is now by working exclusively for us. With us.”

Wellynd tried to call his bluff “How do you know the Captain isn’t already making boatloads of money ? Why does he need you?”

Tanner laughed, “Just a delivery boy eh?”

Wellynd reddened.

Tanner’s face grew hard. “If he was making ‘boatloads’ then he wouldn’t be processing half of his hauls and selling raw ore to the Crusaders of Deakon, would he?”

Wellynd fumbled “Well I don’t know anything about that.

He really didn’t.

As far as Wellynd knew, The Crusaders of Deakon were a mercenary group of ill-repute that were sometimes contracted to do Verta’s dirty work when their armies were needed elsewhere.

Rumours of their barbaric practices had reached the island; mostly based out of Verta, but not officially part of the Vertan regiments, groups like the Crusaders of Deakon used their independence as an excuse to carry out their missions with extreme brutality.

According to Leofer, who often heard stories from folks travelling on the ferry, the Crusaders made the Vertan army seem like Rellian scholars.

There’s no way Laine was working with them.

While he was no patriot, he couldn’t see his uncle supporting a group like that.

Tanner must be lying.

“Ask him yourself” continued Tanner, shrugging his shoulders, wearing what almost seemed to be a look of pleasure as he watched Wellynd process the information.

“I..uh…I don’t speak to the captain myself. I get instructions and the stone; that’s it.” said Wellynd staring down at the table.

“Ah” said Tanner.

He stood up.

“Leave. All of you. I need to talk to Wellynd. Alone.”

Trin looked mystified as she shimmied out of the seat. Grug and Slim, who had been standing and watching with their arms crossed at the end of the table glanced at each other.

“Tanner, we don’…” started Slim.

In an instant, Tanner’s hand was clutching Slim’s neck, holding the thin man in the air, his feet dangling.

With incomprehensible strength, he pulled the man’s head closer while keeping him well off the ground.

He stared into Slim’s eyes “ we don’t what, Slim? did you think before you opened your mouth again? I really think you need to start taking my advice.”

He let Slim drop, who caught himself on Grug’s arm before scowling at Wellynd and walking over towards the bar with the other two.

Tanner sat back down.

“Sorry about that, Wellynd. Slim means well for the outfit but he’s not particularly smart. I often wonder if he’s worth more than the trouble he causes.”

It took a second, but Wellynd realized that the man’s irises had turned molten once more.

“What was I saying again?”

“Uh…that you want the Captain to join the Mox?” offered Wellynd.

“Oh right. Yes. Wow that Slim makes my blood boil.” he laughed “Right. So you tell The Captain that he should seriously consider this offer. The Mox are going to be a major player soon. With the war ramping up, he’ll need our help for what’s coming. Otherwise…” he looked around for a moment before leaning in closer, his eyes burrowing into Wellynd.

“Otherwise, he might find his nephew strung up from one of those chains he has hanging from the roof of that lovely little warehouse in Kellek’s Watch.”

Wellynd froze.

“How do you…” he started.

Tanner let out a deep, hearty laugh. “We know a lot of things, Wellynd. Don’t worry though. We have a very insulated information structure in the Mox Ambrum. Only a few of us know who the Captain is. But it would be just awful if someone like Slim found out where you all live, wouldn’t it?” he put his hand on Wellynd’s shoulder as if they were old buddies “I’m going to be honest with you, Welly. That’s what they call you right? I don’t think he likes you very much.” Wellynd turned to look at Slim who was leaning against the bar eying them suspiciously.

Tanner sat back down and took another drink, this time from his own flagon of ale.

“Why don’t you head on out for now. We can talk again next time you come down. Who knows, maybe you’ll have a place in the Mox. Even though you failed your tests, we can teach you so many neat tricks.” he took one last drink before getting up and walking towards the back door.

Wellynd sat, unable to process all the information he had just received. He felt paralyzed. He knew he had to go, but he just didn’t know what to do first.

Should he return to Laine immediately?

No…that was stupid. There was no point in rushing home just because he was scared.

Laine would know what to do. He just needed to keep course.

Wellynd reached across the table and took a drink of Tanner’s ale. This was his world now; he needed to learn to deal with it.

“Let’s go. You’ve lived out your welcome” said Slim.