Goro stepped through the dark and cramped mineshaft heading towards his new boss’s office. The tunnels were humid and dripping, with water leaking in from above. The wooden support beams that held the shaft’s wall together sagged from deterioration from mold and mildew. It was the perfect location for the nefarious bandit gang, The Black Hand. 

Goro was a well-built man with a deceptively slender frame. His pitch-black hair was slicked back, and his eyes gave a permanently sinister glare that often chased off adversaries before any altercation could occur. On his back clanked a similarly deceptive plain iron sword. Honestly, that’s all it really was. Goro preferred cheaply made swords since he had a tendency to break them. Goro had a cerian philosophy he lived by; it wasn’t the quality that made a sword. It was how it was used. 

Goro reached the door and pulled it open. The office Goro stepped in couldn’t really be called an office. It was more like a natural dead end formed in the mine shaft with wooden walls erected and placed around to give the illusion that you were stepping into a room. The moment Goro stepped in, he was assaulted by a wall of smoke that threatened to choke his life out. Inside the room, various unfitting and obviously stolen furniture and decorations littered the room. 

Altogether, four people were in the hazy room. His teammate Katharine the Reaper sat to Goro’s right sitting on a wooden crate. Her tight-fitting dark purple dress threatened to burst from her chest at any moment; it honestly amazed Goro how she managed to get dressed in the morning. A crooked, bent, pointed hat sat on her head while thousands of eyes could be seen blinking under the brim. 

Her long dark blue hair fell down around her waist, and her long bangs covered her left eye while a beauty mark sat right below her right. Katherine held a long pipe up to her mouth as she breathed out a large cloud of smoke that fed the growing haze in the room. 

Katherine specialized in dark magic, particularly the forbidden art of Necromancy. Her power was unrivaled amongst her peers. Born in Valania as a war orphan, Katherine’s talent quickly led her to be picked up as a soldier in the war under the Dragon King. However, she defected and began working as an instructor for the University of Magic Arts in the academy city of Orriostelca in the Moncontian Empire. However, she was dishonorably discharged from her position after her use of Necromancy had been revealed. To escape the law and survive on her own, she turned to a life of crime and never looked back. 

“Fashionably late as always, I see….” Katherine took another huff of her pipe and breathed a puff of smoke. “You can’t at least try to make us look good in front of our new boss, Goro?” Katherine sighed, but she smiled a smirk. 

Goro laughed a confident chuckle. “What can I say? Being fashionably late is my signature.” Goro gave a shrug and smirked back.

“Well, you’re here now…” a rough voice called over from Goro’s left. “And you’re not drunk this time, so that’s a plus.” The voice came from a man in simple lower-class clothes with a leather large-brimmed hat. The man’s stubble poked out from his chin in a messy patchy fashion. A goofy grin spread across his face as his droopy eyes gave an incompetent look. 

The man leaned against the wall, a dagger twirling in his hand. The man went by Ricky Nine Lives. Despite his unintelligent looks, the man was anything but. His cleverness was a force to be reckoned with. Goro had once seen Ricky con a famed merchant in the merchant’s guild into buying their own store. If Ricky told Goro he managed to trick a one-legged orphan into giving away their other leg, Goro would believe it without a second thought. Goro didn’t know much about Ricky other than that con-artistry ran deep in his family for generations. Apparently, he learned from the best.

“C’mon, you guys know me,” Goro whined as he pushed his hands through his hair. “I wouldn’t have risked such a lucrative opportunity by coming to this meeting drunk.” 

Katherine and Ricky laughed together. “Yeah, okay. So you say. Isn’t drunk shenanigans your other signature? Ricky mused as he spun his dagger. “What do you call it again?” Ricky grinned.

“Being the fun one,” Katherine added as she laughed out another cloud of haze. 

“Oh, yeah, that’s right.” Ricky laughed again. 

“All is good. New Boss is late.” Another voice spoke up in a thick northern accent. Directly in front of Goro stood a short but bulky figure. 

The man was a stout dwarf, though his body was covered in thick and religiously maintained muscles. Though he only wore tattered pants, bright red war paint covered his body in intricate dwarven patterns. A long beard dangled from his chin, and a few braids hung from his mustache. Two dwarf-sized battle axes sat on his back. 

The Dwarf’s name was Vatdrerlug the Revenger. But Goro just liked to call him Vat, and he never seemed to complain about it. Apparently, Vat belonged to an illegal Dwarven war cult that worshipped battle and bloodshed. Initially, he served as a mercenary in the war of the three principalities. Still, after his defeat on the battlefield, Vat decided to scour the continent, searching for opponents he could face in duels to the death. 

Goro huffed. “So our new boss is the fashionably late type, too, huh?” Goro scratched his chin and complained dejectedly. “If I knew I had time to kill, I would have grabbed a few drinks….” 

Katherine refilled her pipe with Puffgrass and lit it with fire magic before taking another lungful. “You guys thinking what I’m thinking?” Katherine called out gently, her eye narrowed slightly. 

“That this is a setup…?” Ricky lifted his hat with his dagger and stared at Goro. “Thoughts?”

Goro rubbed his chin and opened his mouth to answer, but a voice behind them cut him off. “It’s no setup. Sorry, fellas, I was preoccupied with some gentlemanly duties.”