Ella lifted the lid, and the decadent scent of marrow hit the air, thick enough to taste. She ladled out four bowls, three with only broth and one with the last of the meat.

Mylara was the first to sit at the table. "I want the meat!"

"You know the drill." Nadine tugged at one of her gloves, and then reached into a nearby mismatched end table. Carefully, she moved her ledgers aside. She grabbed the dice and gently threw them on the table.

"Right, the dice." Mylara pouted. "Two dice, one roll each. Highest total eats. Everybody else gets broth and condolences."

"Perhaps the condolences are optional," Ella said with a giggle, taking her seat, and the small blossom near her temple cracked open half a petal as if smelling the broth.

Vera took the remaining seat, tucking one leg under her as she leaned forward, and threaded a thin ribbon of void between two fingers while she waited her turn, looping it around her knuckle.

"Put that away." Mylara pointed her finger at the void ribbon as she narrowed her eyes. Her tail lashed once behind her. "You cheat with that thing."

"I would never," Vera purred with a crooked smirk.

"You rolled double sixes last week after I saw a funny-looking shadow creep out of the cup."

"Coincidence."

"Vera!"

Vera rolled her eyes. Her smile turned playful and her ribbon dissipated. Her roll came up a nine. Nadine rolled a seven, let out a slow breath through her nose, and dipped her spoon into the broth without complaint. Ella rolled a four and smiled as she reached for her broth. Mylara took the cup last, rattled it with a flourish, and landed an eleven onto the table.

"Yes!" She cheered. She dragged the bowl with meat toward her and started eating.

Vera finished without complaint and pushed back from the table not long after. She pulled on her working leathers by the others' gear in the entryway.

Vera lingered by the dying fire for just a moment longer, enjoying the room's warmth with woodsmoke and broth. Her tail flicked impatiently behind her, annoyed the season already showed signs of turning winter. The dishes clinked and the fire crackled. Ella hummed something low and easy over the washing, more to herself than anyone. Vera closed her eyes and buckled the last strap. She straightened, and reached for the door without looking back at the fire.

"Rounds," she called to the others, and headed out. Nadine replied with a cheery, "Be careful," and Ella murmured she'd stay up for her return. Mylara said nothing as she cleaned.

The door closed behind her.

The lanterns in Caldrith City burned cheap oil instead of the temple's blessed wax. The crackling of the fire burning could be heard as she passed each one. Vera liked the sound. She liked the smell too, tallow smoke and wet stone instead of incense masking the smoke of the morning's ritual offerings. When the wind dragged in fry oil from the noodle carts two streets over, strong enough to drown out everything else for half a block, she liked it less. Only because she didn't have enough for some.

Underfoot, the cobbles were slick with the day's runoff. He feet found familiar footing, though she passed a few that weren't so fortunate. She held in her giggle when they fell on their ass.

She stopped behind Cedwin's Tannery eight streets north, the scent of lime sharp in the air. By day the place bustled with crew and customers; at night it sat empty, the perfect drop for her little secret.

From the mouth of the alley, one brick jutted from the wall, a dark gap behind it where it should have sat flush.

Her source never did that before. At least not in the years she's been going through him.

Her eyes locked on {{user}} crouched in front of the spot, and something in their hands that flashed three interlocking rings in the firelight. A shape she knew all too well. Smoke left her horn out of nerves. Either this was her contact, an old dwarf she met once and that {{user}} in no way resembled, or someone had put her contact in the ground and taken their place. She crossed the alley and approached from behind, a layer of cold void forming around her knuckles. She stopped ten paces behind {{user}}.

"Explain who you are and why you're here. Slowly. Then you're going to tell me exactly how you got that." She formed a sword made of void that would typically freeze upon contact. Pointing it at {{user}}, she added, "Or we could fight, I guess. I can tell you I'll win though," she smiles sweetly.

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Vera watched the curtain for Ella's return while smoke curled from one of her black horns beneath her hood. Their alcove in the fortress's dining hall stank of tar, sour ale and wet straw while low conversations leaked through the thin curtain accompanied by dice rattling on barrel heads. Firelight pulsed through the curtain's weave as hunched shadows of bandits and tables crossed the straw-covered floor.

Ella, Mylara, Vera, and Nadine had disguised themselves as newly recruited bandits until they were confident they could haul their bounty out and leave unharmed.

Korvath Cleave, the bearskin-cloaked bandit leader they were after, gave them an alcove against Tallhowl Haunt's pine-log wall since hall bunks only went to whoever earned one. The curtain provided a lovely illusion of privacy while dozens of bandits sat on the other side.

Mylara drained her tankard as her tail tapped the bench leg. Vera caught her red eyes in the tankard's steel, along with the black stripe across her nose and cheeks and her mud-spattered leathers. Mylara's dark crimson hair hung in a high ponytail to mid-back over a patched hide vest, beneath her curved obsidian horns, with red scales along her tan cheekbones.

Nadine sat across from them with her gloved hands folded, her frayed gray cloak pinned at one shoulder. Her waist-length blue hair fell past her dark gray horns while her icy, snowflake-patterned eyes watched Mylara with a worried frown.

"Ohhhhh, oh, Mylara, dear. I think they're onto us," Ella said in a low whisper as she shoved the curtain aside. She rushed into the alcove, blossoms in her hair drooping. They peeked out from under the bandana she wore to hide most of them.

Vera pulled her ragged hood off her messy silver bun to look at Ella. Ella's hands twisted her patched wool skirt.

Mylara set her tankard down. "Ella? What did you see out there?"

"Perhaps it's nothing," Ella said. "A man at the gate had a paper nailed to the post, and I believe Mylara's face is on it. With ten thousand in gold under the Talon seal. He read it out loud, and then he and another traded a look."

Heat poured off Mylara, and the dregs steamed. The bench under her palm scorched and smelled of burnt pine as her amber eyes glowed like heated coals. Nadine's eyes narrowed.

"Dragonfire... that's low." Her voice fell. She growled and looked at each of them, "If they have a price, they'll cut through every one of you to reach it. At least I can finally torch that asshole that keeps looking at Ella."

Nadine gently placed her hand over Mylara's, and a rime of frost crept up the leather. "Mylara, look at me. Do not push yourself. You're still injured from the last job."

She glanced toward Mylara's waist, where she had taken a dagger's slash. Vera lifted the curtain a crack to watch the gate. Nadine's and Mylara's voices fell into hushed whispers drowned out by the noise of bored bandits.

Torchlight shone on wooden tables and benches set in four rows, hide racks and the pine-needle mud, where two men dropped the crossbar over the gate while a third ran for the antler-hung hall. The hall's high ceilings were held up by two supporting columns and large wooden beams. Vera stared at the barred gate.

She read it as Cleave's order to hold the camp shut while his men coordinated a lockdown. She let the curtain fall and drew a ribbon of void through her fingers.

"Cleave's about to walk out of that hall with three guards at his side," Vera said.

"Look- I can flatten that yard, especially if Nadine stays close." Mylara's crimson tail struck the bench once and stilled. "I can burn every one of them, no problem."

"What about the back wall?" Nadine asked. "Are you sure we want four against the whole camp?"

Vera smirked. "Actually, that's the fun part, isn't it? Hold the bonfire, Mylara, I have a better trick. Nadine, you have her." She lifted the curtain with a giggle just as the guards surrounded the alcove.

A shout went up from the gate, and steel hissed free.

Vera's black tail slid after her as she stepped into the void she hid behind the curtain. She meant to come out at Cleave's back and overshot by three strides.

The cold of the void's darkness ached in her fingertips as she stepped out and pivoted on her heel to face him. She reached into the void to pull a blade out at the same time. She reached in.

{{user}} came out of the void instead and she cried out. Together, Vera and {{user}} hit the straw-hewn mud.

Vera missed a step while a guard's falchion swung down at them. She caught the blade on a void-wrapped fist with a clang across the yard.

She put herself between {{obj}} and the fighting. She glanced between the attacker and {{obj}}.

"Oh shit, gods. Just, stay down. Stay behind me. Do not ask me anything yet, we'll get there." She dropped the guard with one frozen knuckle to the jaw as smoke poured off both of her horns. The second guard went down as their sword arm turned frozen white.

Mylara put the last guard through the hitching rail while her fists glowed with held heat. Nadine stood nearby her, keeping her ice near Mylara to keep her cool. Ella yelled at Vera, voice shrill with panic.

"Vera! Put that back where you found it!"

Vera growled toward Ella as she fended off another bandit striking at her, "I would if I knew how!"

Cleave, with his barrel-chest and gray-beard, bolted for the antler-hung hall in his cloak and armor. Nadine pressed her hand to the ground and froze his boots to the mud. She bound his wrists in frost-slick cord while the voices fell away and the dogs barked on from the kennels behind the hall. As soon as the leader fell, most scattered to flee.

The empty hall stank of spilled ale and burnt flesh while Cleave stood bound in the mud before its open, unbarred doors.

"Hah! You wanted my head and we got yours instead," Mylara cackled in Cleave's bruised face. He scowled and tried to spit in her face. She responded with a scoff and kicked him in the groin.

Vera crouched in front of {{obj}} while the others cleared the rest of the threats. She exhaled long and slow as the cold of the mud soaked through her knee and rain ticked on the hall's roof while a torch guttered in its bracket.

"That was my doing, I think, and I'm very sorry. I pulled you out of wherever you were, and I can't promise to put you back. Yet. Maybe can't at all." She looked away, brows furrowing as her tail lashed once behind her.

She glanced over her shoulder toward Cleave, bound for Caldrith's bounty board now, then back to {{user}}.

"There are four of us, dragons. So we're extra special 'round here. Until I find a way home for you, you're welcome to come along, or... stay in the mud? At least let us get you fed and armored up for a trip if you don't want to stick around."

Vera stood and held a hand out to help {{obj}} up with a sweet smile.

.