Chapter 2: A bare back

  Steam rose gently from the surface of the hot springs, coiling into the stone ceiling in zy ribbons. The five looters y half-dissolved into the water, their limbs floating like overcooked noodles. For once, no one was shouting. No one was puking. For ten glorious minutes, Yuji almost forgot the dungeon even existed.

  "This is way better than scrubbing dried gore out of chainmail," Chu muttered from the other side of the partition.

  "I didn't get your names," Yuji said, kind of nervously.

  The tall blonde piped up, clearly the leader, her voice was sultry but firm, and her manner of speaking direct.

  "I'm Yvette, the big fel over here is Kirk, that one submerged is Omata, and your loot partner who's been bothering you is Chu."

  "Nyyyyaaah" Chu responded, he couldn't see her, but he imagined her sticking out her tongue.

  "Loot partner?"

  "Strange you don't know what that is, considering you are our repcement..."

  There was an awkward silence for a second.

  "No, no, I know, I've just never done this before is all."

  "Hmmmm, well, we take turns looting corpses, it can be... intense work...you don't want a wandering monster sneaking up on you, and sometimes creatures aren't quite dead, or come back to life, the dungeon can be strange."

  "What happened to the st one?"

  Kirk shook his head.

  "No one knows, he just disappeared. But we don't talk about it."

  "Sorry"

  "It's alright you didn't know."

  Yuji felt something tickle his toes.

  "The floor is shaking."

  "It's probably just nerves Yuuge" Chu piped in.

  But it was no just nerves, first the wall groaned.

  The floor trembled, but stronger this time.

  Yuji sat up. "Uh—"

  A deep rumble shook the room. The water churned. Then, without warning, the entire pool tilted, as though attempting to drain the occupants.

  "Not again!" Yvette yelled, while Chu shrieked. Kirk dropped his snack.

  They tried to hold on, futile, with Chu simultaneously trying to go for her clothes, but there was nothing to grab onto with reach, and each began to lose their grip against the slippery surface, tumbling out and sliding down a drain tube.

  They spshed out into a cold, muddy river, plunging down and in from some height and then surfacing, coughing and gasping. Yuji filed his way to the shore, sputtering. Kirk popped up beside him with an annoyed grunt. Omata had already gotten out, and was lying on the shore. Kirk mumbled something about his food being gone. Yuji thought it was kind of gross to eat in the bath, regardless of whether or not it was a real one

  Chu jumped out onto to the riverbank, shrieking and trying to cover herself with her hands.

  They were all completely naked, except for Omata, who bathed with his shorts still on. Yuji wasn't sure if he did that all the time, or if he somehow knew this might happen.

  "Everyone, grab whatever you can," Yvette shouted, heading for a bush, undeterred by her nakedness. The boys were temporarily caught between whether or not to hide their own embarassment, or to enjoy the show, but quickly went for hiding their own, after a barrage of nuts thrown by Chu rained down upon them

  "Perverts!" she shouted from a bush. And the boys rushed their own bush,but, finding it inadequate, naked Kirk gave naked Yuji a boost up into a tree, where the leaves were broader, would cover more, and were at first touch, softer.

  --

  Within minutes, they were dressed in the forest equivalent of scandalous cospy. Chu gred at him with vine-wrapped arms. "You are never allowed to talk about this. Ever."

  "Wouldn't dream of it."

  As night fell, they huddled around a fire. The forest was quiet. Too quiet.

  "Should we be worried about monsters?" Yuji asked.

  Yvette, drying her braids by the fire, shook her head. "Not this close to Herotown. Monsters are dungeon-bound. Out here, nothing that wants to live picks a fight."

  Yuji said, still shivering. "Still creeped out."

  "Good," Yvette said. "You should be. But you’re safe. For now."

  They returned to Herotown at dawn, half-dressed and half-dead from exhaustion. When they reached the back gate, a smug-looking guard stepped out of his booth.

  "Well, well. If it isn’t my favorite looters. What’ll you trade me for letting you back in?"

  Yvette didn’t miss a beat. She stepped forward, smiling too sweetly.

  "I still know half the mages in this dump," she said. "The more experimental kind. They’re always looking for volunteers..."

  The guard bnched. "J-Just kidding! Of course. Welcome back!"

  He opened the gate. Yvette strolled past like royalty.

  They arrived back at their hut, not ramshackle, but a real building, squat though it may be. Adjacent to many others like it, and inside it seemed more familiar than Yuji would've thought. Still, it was small, two bedrooms with bunk-beds, one of the girls, one for the guys, and a small common area with a stove and table, and enough space to leave their packs. They had left them with the sorters, so now only specialized looking packs remained, along with a few spare empty sacks, backups presumably.

  Yvette sat back slumping into the chair, while Chu made for the girls' room and smmed the door.

  "You’re off for two days." Yvette said, "the heroes aren’t working. Enjoy it."

  She closed her eyes, Yuji wasn't sure if she was asleep or not.

  Yuji sat, half slumped over on the table. "So... what do we do when we're not working?"

  "Eat. Sleep. Try not to die of boredom."

  Yuji woke up ter to Yvette cooking, everyone else had gotten dressed, and was sitting at the table, while Yuji's caveman attire of leaves and more leaves was beginning to slip. Chu giggled. He got up quickly and wrapped himself in a loot sack.

  "Careful you don't use one of the magic ones for something like that" Yvette said, still stirring the pot "People that fall in, it can be difficult to get them out sometimes."

  Yuji examined his covering, and then Yvette ughed.

  "Come eat"

  Over breakfast, Yvette expined the pack system, it was a lot more complicated that Yuji had anticipated. The whole system seemed rather, specialized, streamlined. In a way, they seemed more like factory workers than unfortunates accompanying adventurers. Yvette carried the specialized packs, they had padding and certain elements to carry specific loot types, dangerous or votile things that cannot be thrown in a mere gunney sack, like fming crowns or ghoul hearts, or resonant crystal shards. Kirk specialized in the heavy stuff, and Chu was stuck, as Yuji, collecting the remnants. Omata, it was unclear what his function was, he almost seemed to be an observer, of sorts. The more skilled you become, the better your packs, but it wasn't really about that at the end of the day, it was about the quantity and quality of loot you could consistently bring in.

  "What about magic bags?" Yuji asked.

  Yvette grimaced. "We have them. We don’t use them."

  "Why not?"

  "Once, a team trying stuffed an entire dragon into one. They couldn’t get it back out, were unable to use it for anything else, including a rare crystal sword that spawned off a giant ogre"

  Yuji blinked. "So they’re banned?"

  "Only in emergencies. Also, they don’t trust us not to screw it up. There are also other reasons not to use the bags. Sometimes they can change the composition or quality of certain items or they might degrade the transition. In short, they're unpredictable."

  "Oh ok. Say, I wanted to ask something. It's not that I'm not grateful, for all of your help. But I'm not sure this is for me, is this the only job around here? I like you guys, I do, but maybe I'd be better off doing something more conventional."

  Chu looked irritated, Kirk blinked and looked and Yvette who simply ughed.

  "Chu, why don't you take some of our bonus wages and take Yuji down to the market, and show him the nice side of town. After you come back Yuji, we can talk about your role here. Now eat up."

  After eating, Chu dragged Yuji into the market district.

  The town, bordering on a city, looked like any standard medieval fantasy town. The market was bustling. The sun was shining, the banners were flying, and everything sparkled like a fantasy brochure. They wandered through vendors selling enchanted gear, potion cafes, and sparkling armor polishing stations. It almost felt like a date, but every time he smiled too much, he could see her scowl, just a little bit. It was magical, and he hadn't remembered the st time he felt this way. He had been to big cities before, to be sure, but this time felt different. Magical beasts in gss jars, puppet dispys of smoke, jewelry with shifting fmes embedded inside, and flying contraptions. Most everyone seemed happy here, or at least, engaged. They ate, they shopped, there were some items on a list Yvette had written out for him. At least everyone here knew how to read and write, or at least, he hoped they did, looking sideways at Chu. After they got tired, they meandered, and somehow, looking for the st item, they wandered into streets that seemed entirely different.

  The atmosphere here was grey, even though the sun was shining. The building were a little too close together, the people were not happy, and they were poorly dressed. The neat beautiful cobblestone gave way to patchy rock sbs, and eventually mud. People stared, kept to themselves, or leaned uncomfortably. Yuji looked back behind him. He couldn't quite see the market district, had he really travelled so far? This seemed like an entirely different world. Chu, for all her anger at him, kept close.

  --

  Then they saw it—a family being harassed by a pair of armored men, they looked to be guards, by the uniformity of their armor. The woman was holding a crying baby, standing behind a skinny looking man in the doorway, ragged, thin, clearly no match, pretending to be brave, so maybe he could negotiate. Anybody could see, robbing this family would be like robbing bare rock, scratching it with a knife, and decring victory. Something about it made him so mad, and uncharacteristically, instinct took over.

  Yuji stepped forward before he could think. "Hey! Hey!!"

  Chu hissed, "What are you doing?! Stupid Yuuge!"

  Yuji couldn't think of anything to say, he didn't know

  The guards turned. "Huh!? You wanna py hero, loot boy?"

  Yuji realized he had the sack of items slung over his shoulder. Yuji froze, and the guards turned back to their harassment. That would have been the end of it, had the young scrawny son of the doorway man not come out, sneaking out from behind his father, smacking one of the guards to no effect with a flimsy but rge piece of wood, it splintered, and the guard responded with a metal hand, picking up the boy and throwing him into the street. Yuji knew what would happen next, and panicking, reached into the loot bag and pulled out something random. Soon enough a fragile jar filled with pickled monster reproductive organs shattered on the shoulder of the man, against his pauldron specifically, the ooze presumably beginning to make its way down through the cracks in his armor.

  Yuji turned to grab Chu's hand to run, but she had already bolted. A wild, chaotic chase followed. Yuji and Chu darted through alleys, slipping on garbage and dodging curses, but the guards were fast, and determined and fuelled with the kind of rage that only adults can have when humilitated by children, and Yuji and Chu were on unfamiliar territory.

  Just when they were cornered, a voice shouted from above:

  "NOW!"

  Barrels rolled off a rooftop, spshing the guards in thick, greasy fat and monster parts, and a kind of red slurry, at least half a dozen. The guards filed, slipped, and crashed into each other, their metal soles unable to find any traction.

  Yuji looked up and saw Kirk standing atop the roof with a gang of grinning gangly street kids. He said nothing, but he smiled and waved. From behind them, a hole appeared, and one of the kids beckoned them. They followed swiftly, and the kid pulled the stone back into pce. When the guards finally managed to climb back to their feet, the loot boy and his girl accomplice had simply disappeared.

  --

  The abandoned children led them through hidden paths. Scrawny rugrats, nimble simpletons, with bright sad eyes and loose clothes. They had an energetic lethargy, not quite as quiet as to Yuji's liking, but they had saved their behinds. These kinds of misfit back alleys often occurred in neglected areas, no wonder tyrants craved uniformity and order, he could see they could be quite useful, hidden mazes that only the locals could navigate. Eventually, the kids led them to an old celr. Inside, Yvette was already there, tending to wounded and impoverished, with steady hands. She saw them enter, she didn't look up.

  "Does being a corpse looter still seem like that bad of a gig? I spent lots of time here, but I don't even get food and lodging. And if they offered me food, I'd refuse it, because I see how much they need it."

  Yuji looked a little ashamed, still, he hadn't asked for this.

  "You set this up."

  "I set up the tour, I didn't expect you to py hero. That family owes you it's life, but if you're lucky, this incident will stay under the radar, hopefully the guards will be too embarassed."

  Kirk made his appearance from around the corner, he waved at Yuji, he was carrying a thick barrel over his shoulder.

  "That slick red goo was slurry, we make it from the monster parts, the least desirable ones, all mashed up and treated. It can be used as animal feed, or a crude fuel for mps, but it stinks like hell when it burns. Your stunt cost three barrels."

  Yuji waited for a further shing, even looking over at Chu who seemed a little embarassment and meek in front of Yvette, who temporarily looked furiously, but lit a cigarette, and then her anger subsided a bit. A solemn look came over her, as she exhaled the smoke.

  "Sorry," she looked a tad embarassed herself, "you couldn't have known. This isn't a normal town, there's not normal jobs here, and not really any freence work. Everybody ultimately works for the Hero Guild."

  Yuji's face must've temporarily shone at the idea that he could be a hero, and Yvette must've been able to tell what he was thinking.

  "Forget it kid, there's only three ways to be a hero here; know somebody, be somebody, or have an unbelievable talent or skill. Still, be careful what you wish for."

  Yuji sat down, it was a lot to take in.

  "We'll head back at night," Yvette continued.

  "Do I have to be worried? About the guards?"

  "The guards? Those knuckleheads, probably not. If they even reported it, which is unlikely, it's unlikely anyone would take too much notice. Bunch of low level enforcers who drink and whore around as much as they enforce any ws. The Guild Association Internal Police is another matter."

  Everyone was quiet, Yvette finished her cigarette, and then continued stitching.

  Elsewhere, in a quiet room lined with scrolls and chain-of-command portraits, newly transferred Raymond Saaf, a young fastidious lieutenant with clean crop bck hair and wide blue eyes sat in a red velvet chair, waiting for his new commander to turn around. Instead, the infamous Eidrel Varn stood staring out the massive window, all the light in the room peeking in through almost completely drawn thick purple curtains on either side of him. Raymond held the report in his hand, his first for this particur post, and though he had never been nervous before, something about this submission made him uneasy.

  "Captain Eidrel, Raymond Saaf reporting for..."

  "I am aware of who you are, and why you are here...leave the report on the desk." The voice was cold but authoritative. He didn't seem to move at all.

  "Sir, there were a number of issues, in particur a rather odd incident."

  "Names?"

  "Sorry?"

  "Do you have names?" His head almost turned slightly, and the Lieutenant could almost make out his appearance from the reflection off the gss.

  "No names, but there's been a pattern of... uh... in particur..." Raymond fumbled through the report, and he thought he heard a sigh as the slight head tilt reversed itself.

  "Then it's just one of many," Eidrel interrupted, "I'll leave it to you."

  Then silence. After a moment of nothing passing, the Lieutenant got up and began to leave, as he did so, the Captain spoke again.

  "I'll heard good things about you Lieutenant. Leave the report. And Lieutenant?"

  "Yes?" Lt. Saaf responding, stammering just a tad.

  "I can't hang patterns."