Duskbound

Jensen walked past the cat house three times before he worked up the nerve to actually go inside. If anyone he knew had seen him entering Melon and Peach, he'd die of shame, but of course this was where Velik was staying. Somehow. Did he have something against a normal inn? How did he…

Trying to imagine what kind of conversation his socially awkward partner had been forced to endure with the matron was too much for Jensen. He snickered as he walked in, drawing a scowl from the man standing near the door. The guy was close to six and a half feet tall and muscled heavily enough that Jensen suspected his class put all his physical points directly into his strength. Some sort of laborer class, I'd bet. No actual combat training.

"Something funny?" the man asked.

"No. Just looking for a friend of mine."

"Yeah, right. Just looking for a friend. In a cat house. I'm sure that's it."

"No, really," Jensen insisted. "Don't ask me why he's paying for a room here, but this is where he told me I could find him."

"Oh." The man's voice turned flat. "That guy. Tall. Dark hair. That weird thing wrapped around his arm."@@novelbin@@

"That's him," Jensen confirmed.

"Yeah, he's here. For some reason." That last part was muttered under the man's breath, but Jensen clearly heard it anyway. Low level people severely underestimated the senses of people with hunter classes. Jensen hadn't fully appreciated that until a year or so ago, but he caught random strangers talking to themselves all the time now. Sadly, they rarely had anything interesting to say.

"Do I… just go up?" Jensen asked, waving his hand faintly toward the stairs.

"Not unless you got some vitrunes you want to spend."

"I'm not looking for companionship," Jensen told him stiffly. Certainly not here, at least. His eyes tracked a petite blonde as she crossed the bar. Well…

"Masha," the man called. A different woman's head snapped up from where she was reclining on a sofa wearing a form-fitting dress that ended a few inches too soon to be considered decent. "Go tell the brooder he's got a visitor, will you?"

"Who'd want to visit that guy?" she returned, but with a shrug, she slid off the sofa and slunk across the room to the stairs in the back.

"You keep staring, and I'm going to have to charge you anyway," the doorman told Jensen.

"I'm not staring."

"Sure you're not. Maybe you should turn around and face the wall, then."

Jensen rolled his eyes and crossed his arms as he settled back to lean against the wall. The doorman squinted at him for a few moments, but then shrugged to himself and went back to a card game he'd been playing with another equally large man. A pair of thick cudgels were leaned up against the wall near them, heavy enough that Jensen had no doubt they'd shatter bone if they hit someone with less than 50 physical.

A minute later, Velik came down the stairs. He looked as hostile as ever, like he'd never smiled once in his life and didn't even know how. Considering what Jensen had been told of his childhood and how he'd grown up, that very well could have been true. Deciding not to dwell on it, he exited the cat house without a word and Velik followed him to the street. They started walking, not with any particular destination in mind, but just because Jensen didn't want to stand in front of Melon and Peach while they talked.

"How'd the job go?" Jensen asked.

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"Quick. Easy," Velik told him. "Now I have to wait to see what the guild thinks."

Wasn't he supposed to kill a hydra or something? That's easy for him? I guess it's a good thing, though. I'm only hiring him on for his fighting prowess, and it'll make Shelir happy.

"I guess you'll be gold-ranked, soon. Congratulations. It's pretty rare anyone skips bronze and silver in one jump."

"I guess. Maybe. They've been trying to screw with me, so it might not happen."

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Jensen wasn't sure why anyone at the monster hunters guild would care about Velik. He was too new to have any political enemies, which probably meant that whatever they were up to didn't concern him so much as he was just collateral damage. Given his utter lack of social graces, it wasn't too hard to picture someone picking him out as the pawn to maneuver without fear of repercussions from a powerful family or allies.

"Sorry to hear that," Jensen said. He briefly considered offering to help, but that was something better saved for when he needed Velik to do something he didn't want to do. The young hunter didn't seem like the kind of guy who'd remember he owed Jensen a favor after the fact. "But anyway, what did you want to talk to me about?"

He hadn't expected Velik back so soon, not for another week or two, at least. Jensen didn't know much about hydras, but they were rightly considered to be among the most difficult of monsters to kill, and finding one in a huge swamp couldn't have been easy. Hopefully, Velik wasn't looking for any updates on how the expedition's prep work was coming along. Things just didn't move that fast when large sums of money were involved, and Jensen had his own politics to navigate through before everything came together.

"When do we leave for Slokara?"

Damn it.

Putting on a congenial front that he certainly didn't feel, Jensen faked a laugh. "Not for a few more weeks. Maybe a month or more. The funding has been secured, but details have to be argued out with the investors, and the monster hunters guild is still assembling its list of people it's sending. Hey, if you could get yourself included on that as the guild's newest gold-rank, you could get paid twice for going."

Velik seemed to consider that for a second, then shrugged. "Maybe if those responsibilities don't interfere with my own work."

Considering the man had taken rooms at a cat house in a relatively poor district, Jensen was a bit surprised that Velik would scoff at double-dipping on a payday. He obviously needed the money or he wouldn't be doing jobs like coliseum fighting on the side. He looked like he'd spent everything he'd made from those champion seeds on a fantastic set of gear, which wasn't a terrible investment for a man planning to be a professional monster hunter, but he'd apparently forgotten to leave himself a few thousand decarmas to live on.

"Are you paying me?" Velik asked abruptly.

"What? Of course I'd be paying you. Well, not me personally. Your wages would be drawn from the expedition's funds. Why would you think I wasn't?"

"The deal was you'd get me over the border attached to your caravan in return for me agreeing to be part of the project so that fat nobleman would invest in it. We never said anything about paying me."

Huh. He's right, now that I think about it. Well, I suppose I don't technically have to, but gods save him, he needs some spending money.

"I guess we haven't discussed it yet," Jensen told him. "Like I said, there's still a lot to nail down before we get on the road, but yes, you'll get paid. I could advance you a sum now if you like."'

Men like Velik had a lot of pride, and Jensen didn't want him to think this was charity. If it was just an advance, that was money Velik would be owed. He'd take it and not feel like Jensen was looking down on him, even though he absolutely was. It wasn't Velik's fault he had no financial literacy. He'd lived in the woods his whole life.

"Whatever," Velik said. "What even is the pay?"

"We'll have to settle on a number. If you play it right to Shelir, I'm betting you could get three hundred decarmas, maybe four. I could advance you a hundred now." You could buy a decent pair of clothes and find somewhere classier to stay so I don't have to be seen here and you don't get turned away at the door of the Crystal Monocle.

"If you want."

Jensen frowned. "Not the reaction I was expecting. You don't seem to care."

"It's not very much money," Velik said. "I don't care about a few hundred decarmas. If you can get things moving a day faster, use the money for that instead. I want to leave Cravel as soon as possible, preferably before I have to go attend a meeting with a bunch of people whose faces I want to punch."

"Not… very much money," Jensen repeated. I mean… I agree. It's not that much. But if that's what you think, then why in the hells are you dressed like that and sleeping at Melon and Peach?

"No. Actually, is there anything I can do to speed this up? Do you need more money, or some errands run?"

What is happening right now?

"No, thank you. The meetings are all set up. We've just got to finalize the destination, hire on the monster hunters and the wagon crew, and rent the storage box." And I've got to somehow convince four different people that we need to go to somewhere in Slokara instead of wherever they want to go, but you don't need to know about that part.

"Extradimensional storage?" Velik asked, perking up. "I was looking into that, but it was quite expensive."

"It will be one of the biggest expenses of the entire trip, but it simplifies logistics and gives us a safe way to transport back whatever we find in the vault," Jensen said. "Eventually, I'll have enough to buy one outright, maybe even after this first trip if things go exceptionally well. More likely, it'll be two or three. Then I won't have to jump through all these hoops to get things moving."

"Doesn't help with this one, though," Velik muttered. "Damn. I'm going to have to go to that meeting after all. Alright, I guess it gives me some time to take care of other business. Keep me updated and let me know if you need my help with anything."

"Sure," Jensen agreed easily. There really wasn't much of anything someone like Velik could do beyond what he'd already done, though admittedly, securing the lion's share of the expedition's funding was a pretty important contribution. "If that's all, I've got some meetings of my own to see to."

"Right," Velik said. He sighed and shook his head. "Not ideal. Oh well. Thanks, Jensen."

"You're welcome, Velik."