The badge they pressed into his palm after his signature was warm—too warm. Bronze with an embossed set of chain cuffs gleaming dully under the guildhall's lamp light. He turned it over. Tiny script along the edge read *"Conditional Member—Magical Oversight Required."* From the way it pulsed against his skin, Delvin suspected it could probably sense when he so much as hummed off-key.
Veyne's whiskers twitched behind the glass panel as he tapped a claw against it. *"Oh, and before you ask—no, you can't 'lose' it down a well."* The badge flared hotter, searing Delvin's fingerprints into the metal momentarily. *"Self-anchoring enchantment. Attempted removal triggers subsection 44-F."* His reflection split into a dozen identical smirks. *"Which involves rectal insertion."* What the fuck!!! Delvin exclaimed Veyne cackled joking joking we don't do that anymore but you will be heavily penalized if anything happens to it.
Delvin scowled at the pulsing badge—now fused to his palm like a second skin. A translucent line of red text scrolled across its surface: *Current debt: 1 gold 23 silver 8 copper. Next deduction: next completed contract.* He flicked it. The metal rippled like water before solidifying again. "Charming," he muttered.
Veyne's reflection stretched languidly across the glass panel, his lynx-like tail now visible as it flicked behind him. *"Well now then,"* he purred, voice dripping with false cheer, *"how about you start working on those contracts and pay off that debt?"* His claw tapped the glass again, sending concentric circles radiating outward. *"Who knows—if you keep causing issues, there might be... clauses... on interest that I *might* find."* The last word elongated into something between a chuckle and a growl.
Delvin swallowed the curse bubbling up his throat and plastered on a grin so wide it strained his bruised temple. "Got it!" he chirped with all the sincerity of a drowning man clinging to driftwood. He spun on his heel—too fast, judging by the stab of pain through his skull—and marched toward the towering missions board at the guildhall's center. The pulsing badge on his palm burned hotter with each step, as if mocking his forced enthusiasm.
The missions board loomed before him, its surface a chaotic mosaic of parchment scraps, wax seals, and hastily scrawled notes. Delvin's fingers hovered over the ranked postings—level 5 through 10 not enough coin there. "Collecting moonbloom herbs," he muttered, squinting at a water-stained sheet pinned beneath a rusted nail. "Five coppers per bundle?" His lute hand twitched at the insult. A crumpled notice about escorting some farmer's brats to the next village over offered two whole silvers, but the thought of listening to screaming children made his headache throb. Then he spotted it: *"Kobold Nest Disposal - 10 silver 50 copper upfront, plus 59 copper per tail."*.
Delvin snatched the parchment so fast it tore at the corners. The ink was still damp—must've been posted this morning. Beneath the reward sum, a cramped addendum read *"Warning: Pack tactics confirmed. Minimum party of three advised."* He smirked at the trembling quill marks—some guild scribe had clearly forgotten to write it when the contract was first made and had to quickly add after it was posted almost filed up ther didn't ya Delvin said to no one. Rolling the notice into a tight scroll, he elbowed through the crowd toward the reception desk, where Lira was now weighing a mercenary's bag of orc ears on a tiny brass scale. Without looking up, she slid a ledger toward him. "Sign here," she said, pointing to a line already crowded with three other names. Delvin's stomach lurched at the familiar scrawl of *"Gareth Ironfist"*—the same bald rotbreath mercenary he'd sonic-blasted into the hearth causing the fire.
The badge flared crimson as he pressed it against the ledger. Magic sizzled the contract details burned themselves into the metal. *"Kobold Nest Disposal - Party Assigned: Gareth Ironfist (Warrior - Provisional), Lysara Vex (Rogue), Bela Westen (Hydromancer), and now Delvin Cruz (Bard - Provisional)"* pulsed in angry glyphs across its surface. Delvin groaned. Provisional status meant the others got to claim half his pay and the bastards so it's not too bad.
At least the rot mouthed man was stuck in the same debtor's purgatory. He could already picture the mercenary's face when their badges synced at the rendezvous point—that vein on his temple bulging like a live worm under scar tissue. Oh he's going to sing that song the entire walk to the kobold nest.
Delvin ducked into the first alleyway that reeked of trash and filth, following the rhythmic *tap-tap-tap* of a cobbler's hammer until it gave way to the sharper staccato of a luthier's workshop. The sign above the door—a warped fiddle with three broken strings—swayed ominously as he shouldered inside.
"Yo, old hag! I need work done on my lady!" Delvin shouted into the shop's gloom, hefting his lute case onto a workbench cluttered with mandolin guts and a half-carved bridge that looked suspiciously like a pelvic bone.
The crone shuffled from behind a curtain of dangling gut strings, her leather apron stained with decades of rosin and scratches. "Ohhhh," she croaked, poking at Delvin's broken lute strings with a hooked awl. "This one got into a bar fight, eh?" Her fingers—knotted with arthritis but moving with unnerving precision—plucked the snapped E string, making it twang like a dying insect.
Delvin flinched as she suddenly grabbed his wrist, turning his badge-palm upward. The bronze gleamed dully under her oil lamp. "Hmph. Guild-branded." She snorted, flicking the pulsating metal with a yellowed fingernail. "They still using the rectal insertion clause?"
No Delvin said they don't. A pitty the hag said I quite enjoyed it. Before he could even process that unwanted knowledge she yanked his lute from its case, her nose wrinkling at the ale dried to it. "Smells like piss and bad decisions," she muttered, scraping a blackened thumbnail across the soundboard. A flake of something came loose. "What'd you do, play a drinking song while pouring ale over yourself?
Delvin opened his mouth to protest when the crone suddenly froze, her milky eyes narrowing at the lute's neck. With a speed that defied her hunched frame, she whipped out a razor and sliced open the instrument's side seam.
"What the—"
"Shut your gob, boy." She peeled back the wood like a fruit rind, revealing a hollow compartment—and the glint of three gold coins nestled inside. Delvin's breath caught. His emergency fund. The one he'd been saving
The crone's grin revealed two missing molars. "Guild took your coin purse," she cackled, pocketing two of the coins before Delvin could lunge, "but old Nettie always finds the stashes." She tossed the remaining gold at his chest. "That'll buy you new strings. And maybe some common sense."
As Delvin scrambled to catch the coin, Nettie was already threading fresh catgut through the tuning pegs, her hands moving faster than his spinning thoughts. The snapped E string slithered to the floor like a shed snakeskin. .
Delvin swallowed. "How fast can you—"
Nettie's awl flashed, embedding itself in the workbench an inch from his fingers. "Finish?" She spat a glob of something brown into a brass spittoon. "Before sundown. If you promise to write a song about my tits."
Delvin choked on his own spit as she cackled again, already reshaping the bridge with a file that looked suspiciously like a shiv. The lute's new string twanged ominously when she plucked it—a sound like a noose tightening.
Hoping what she said was a joke he asked "How much about last night have you heard?" Delvin asked, thumbing the single gold coin in his palm. The crone's grin widened as she jerked her chin toward the shop's sole grimy window. Outside, one of the guildhall's notice boards flapped in the wind, freshly plastered with illustrated broadsheets. Even from this distance, Delvin could make out the cartoonish likeness of himself—wild-haired and mid-yell, lute raised like a club—above the headline: *"FLAMING TROUBADUOR NEARLY BURNS DOWN INN"*. At the bottom it was signed by non other than *Veyne head of of Arcane Mediation*
that fucking cat Delvin muttered.
He then Focused on the bone white neck of the half finished Mandolin on the counter. Nettie, Delvin asks what is this morbid looking thing? She glances down at the half finished instrument and sighs. An old friend asked me to fix it for him. Don't worry about it. As she lifted the half finished bone instrument to put away some black wisps followed the thing. Creepy he shuddered
Delvin then focused back on Nettie and asked in a sincere voice would you be able to repair my Lute and Case before the days end? I must get to the meeting spot with my designated team before then
Nettie waved her hand yes,yes,yes boy i can fix your precious lady and your case while im at it now get out of here your fouling my shop with your unwashed body.
Delvin grimaced at Nettie's words. She's right—he hadn't showered since the day before, and now he was covered in long-dried ale, sweat, and a crusted smear of blood that flaked off his collar when he scratched it. His undershirt clung to his back like a second skin, stiff with evaporated liquor and tavern grime. Even his *hair* reeked—when he lifted a lock to sniff it, his stomach turned at the fermented stench of hops and burnt oak.
Before leaving Nettie yelled *I'll be waiting for your song about my tits she cackled as Delvin left her shop.
Delvin's grin froze. Gods, she *wasn't* joking.
Well he will just file that at the back of his mind and hope it is forgotten as he marches his way to one of the nicer bath houses.